Christian Living
Why would God save us and then allow us to be put into a position where we can fail and fall flat on our faces due to temptation and sin. Mind you, God will never tempt us, but He does allow Satan to tempt us. One of the reasons is for us to face life as it is, but this time with a totally new heart and Spirit. Life is tragic, hard, sad, gritty and simply unbearable at times. God will never shield us from the realities of life. But God has also put His very own Spirit and words into our hearts and minds to face these realities of life, by faith in Him and through obedience to Him. Just before Jesus sent the disciples out for the Great Commission He told them “and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NKJ). We should ask God to make this verse stick and grow in us, because we will need it. We must solely live by obedience through believing in God’s character, faithfulness and word, and not by our feelings or what we see in front of us.
Also, we are to “grow up in all things into Him” (Ephesians 4:15, NKJ). The Apostle Paul was constantly exhorting the Corinthian church to grow up spiritually and get off the bottle, and start eating meat. In other words, get up and walk as Christ walked on this earth showing the glory and splendor of God to the world. Learn by experience what it is to have God as your fortress, to be your very strength and your rock. Walk through the “Valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23), and learn that your God is more than a conqueror for you. Learn to have the same attitude as Christ had while He was on the earth, both towards His Father God and mankind. God is with you in this life the whole way and He means to be your strength, your courage, to teach you all things and to fight and win your life’s battles for you. By going on with God in faith through obedience through this rough and tumble life, it is God’s hope that we will come to see Him as our very life.
We also need to learn (and God will teach us if we are willing) that Christ came to be our atonement so we can learn by knowledge and experience to be “in Christ,” “of Christ,” and “from Christ,” from now on. But what does this mean practically in our walks with Christ and what is God trying to get His children to see? It means for one thing that you and I have the very Life and Spirit that Jesus Christ had in Him when He walked the earth, now in us, in our hearts and minds. We are enabled by Christ through His redemption, to form and link our minds with His mind, our heart and spirit to become “One” with His heart and Spirit, and thus enable Christ’s very life to live out through us. The Christ, Son of God, the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, still has a great commission to continue, disciples that need to be made, souls that need to be saved, love to be shown and extended, battles to be won, prayers to be offered and healings to be done, all through you, again though, being “in Him.” “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20, NKJ). Let this verse become the greatest reality of our lives.
Are we then willing to let Christ in all His Deity and fullness, have His way in us to make us like Himself, becoming “One” with Himself. Are we willing to allow Christ to be “formed in us” (Galatians 4:19, NKJ, so He can show Himself to a lost and lonely world? Can we agree with our Lord that “we must decrease so He can increase within us” (John 3:30 NKJ)? Finally, are we willing to do this once for all time for our Lord? To be lost “in Christ,” so we can be found “in Christ.” To God’s people whom He loves so perfectly, can we not out of love, gratitude, discipline and obedience, give ourselves over to the all loving dominion and control God wants to have in our lives. If you wish to live a life worth living, a most meaningful and purposeful life, then completely surrender your everything and give your life to the One who died for you on the cross in love, while having His eye on you the whole time. You were born for Him and Him only, to be His and not the worlds. Jesus declared “I am the life” (John 14:6, NKJ), we need to trust Him that He is and will be for us, our life.
Another reason God allows His people to be in the midst of temptation is for our relationship to Him. God is a relational God who reconciled us back to Himself for a genuine relationship to be had between us and Himself. We get to start again with God, where Adam and Eve left off. We should be with an attitude as a child, where every-day we get up and we put our little paws into God’s hand so He can lead us into every-day and every way, into His teaching of us. The classroom He teaches us in is the very temptations and blood and guts that make up our daily lives. Nowhere do we ever come into a greater knowledge of God’s strength, patience, power and love, than in the midst of the trials and temptations of our lives. This is where we come to have a deepening faith and dependence on God. This is where Jesus was in the wilderness with Satan. This is where He learned obedience and so must we. This life we live with God in the midst of all our valleys and temptations, is tough and hardly easy, but after all, neither was His death for us on the cross easy. The good news though, is that He goes through this life right there with us and more importantly, in us.
But when we choose to follow and obey God as He takes us through the valleys of our temptations and trials, God gives us an amazing description of what our lives will look like in time, “Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praise to be heard, who keeps our soul among the living, and does not allow our feet to be moved. For you, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us out into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; But You brought us out to rich fulfillment” (Psalm 66:8-12, NKJ). To go through difficult trials and temptations with God is promised to us in our lives, but so is the end result promised to us as well “but You brought us out to rich fulfillment.”
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
This article has been read 564 times < Previous | Next >
Free Reprints
Main Site Articles
Most Read Articles
Highly Acclaimed Challenge Articles.
New Release Christian Books for Free for a Simple Review.
NEW - Surprise Me With an Article - Click here for a random URL
God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38
LEARN & TRUST JESUS HERE
FaithWriters offers Christian reading material for Christian readers. We offer Christian articles, Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, Christian Bible studies, Christian poems, Christian articles for sale, free use Christian articles, Christian living articles, New Covenant Christian Bible Studies, Christian magazine articles and new Christian articles. We write for Jesus about God, the Bible, salvation, prayer and the word of God.