Lesson 41: Living our Faith
There is often a gap in people’s lives between what they think and believe, and how they live their lives. People can proclaim their Christian faith but behave as atheists in daily practice. Paul tells us toward the end of Galatians “If I boast in anything let it be the cross of Christ and Christ risen.” What he meant was that if he were to be remembered or revered for anything, then it should be how well he exemplified Christ in daily life; expressing the joy of salvation, forgiveness because we have been forgiven, and peace. Often life circumstances can make one feel distant from Christ; this is because we have allowed the gap to widen.
To live daily what we believe, we need to put Christ first in our lives. He gave everything so that we could have eternal life; in return he wants our lives dedicated to him. Then we are able to eliminate the gap. To do this we need the power of the Holy Spirit alive in us to help us; and we need to believe that God and Christ are real. Constant prayer, scripture reading, attendance at church, and fellowship with other Christians helps us to live daily that which we believe.
Christ said “If one is not for me, he is against me”; there is no in between. If we’ve accepted Christ and want to be assured of eternal salvation then we need to give our lives over to him; this is the purpose for which he saved us. Being lukewarm is the same as having no relationship with him; like the person who wants nothing to do with God, so also is the lukewarm person; their end will be an eternity without God, which is hell. God gives everyone what they want in the end.
We need to live each day trying, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to reflect Christ in all we think, say and do. We need to surrender our lives to him and trust in him completely. If we immerse ourselves in God’s word, we come to see how completely applicable it is to every way we think and behave and also the way we should be thinking and behaving.