The Christian Life is Simple
As Christians, it is easy for us to make the Christian way of life complicated. It is actually very simple. Our God is not a God of complexity. He makes the Christian life clear and simple for us to understand.
The Christian life begins each day by ensuring that we are in fellowship with God. That requires us to use the grace procedure of naming any sin that we have committed to God the Father (1 John 1:9). As soon as we do, we recover our fellowship with God. We regain the power and influence of God the Holy Spirit, who is our Mentor, our Teacher, our Guide, and our Encourager, and we resume the spiritual life.
We must learn God's Word daily, preferably from someone with the gift of Pastor-Teacher who has been trained for the ministry, knows the Word of God, and teaches it accurately. No one can teach well what they do not know.
Learning must be daily so that we build up a reserve of Bible doctrine that can be applied to our life. Studying God’s Word daily builds spiritual muscle memory so that application becomes reflex. It comes to mind quickly when we face a problem, trouble, or adversity. Daily study also gives us momentum in the Christian life. Our rate of learning must exceed our rate of forgetting. Otherwise, we will always turn to human solutions to resolve problems. Human solutions are no solution. Only God’s Word implanted in our soul can give us the peace of God that surpasses all understanding when we are in the midst of a people problem or an adverse circumstance (Philippians 4:7).
We begin to progress in the spiritual life as we learn God's Word, consider the doctrine we have learned, and think about how to apply it. That progression involves a change of thinking. Philippians 2:5: “Have this thinking in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Romans 12:2 (NASB 1977): “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
We all start out conformed to this world. Until our thinking changes, we are not living the Christian life. “But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Be transformed by the renovation of your thinking. The Christian life begins with right thinking; correct motivation and right actions follow.
Much is done in the Christian world by believers that is good, but it counts for nothing with God. Christians can do good deeds that do not count with God. Why? Because the believer is either out of fellowship, under the control of the sin nature, or has the wrong motivation. For example, every believer who gives to the church or to a person in need in hopes that God will give him back the same or even more has the wrong motivation. All giving should be done in grace in appreciation for the grace that God has extended to us. We can’t bribe God into doing something for us by giving. We might never call it a bribe, but in effect that is what it is if we expect something in return. We have a gracious God who gives regardless of whether we are deserving or not.
Again, the Christian life begins by ensuring we are in fellowship and then learning the Word of God consistently. If we do that, we will apply God’s Word to our lives and thereby become great witnesses for Christ. Not just in our words, but even more importantly in our attitude toward life.
Anything the unbeliever can do cannot be the Christian way of life. Many unbelievers do a lot of good deeds. In fact, they are counting on those good deeds to get them into heaven. But all of their good deeds do not equal the perfect righteousness of God which is graciously given to every believer at the moment of salvation.
What is the difference between the good deeds of a believer and the good deeds of an unbeliever? The unbeliever can only perform good deeds under the power of the sin nature. The believer, on the other hand, has the option to produce good under the power of God the Holy Spirit. This is another reason why it is so important to not have any unconfessed sins in our lives.
As soon as you tell anyone you are a Christian, you can count on them watching you from that day forward. You know who else is watching? The angels—both fallen and elect (1 Corinthians 4:9). They watch for a very specific reason.