In part one, I wrote about how this year I am focusing on getting back to the basics of life in terms of my health, decluttering and time. In part two, though, I want to focus more specifically on getting back to the basics of faith. What does it mean to be a Christian? What causes us to lose sight of what our faith is about?
First and foremost, being a Christian at its most basic level means being a follower of Christ. You believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross paid the penalty for your sins completely. So nothing you do can “get” you into Heaven.
God’s gift of salvation is just that — it’s a gift. You cannot earn it. But you can accept this gift completely and sufficiently as a payment for your sins.
OK, I need to pause because WOW! Praise God for this wonderful gift. Praise God that we do NOT earn our salvation. Praise God that he accepts me as a sinner and washes me completely from my sin because of His Son’s blood.
..He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit… (Titus 3:5)
So having received this gift of salvation, we live to worship God out of gratitude, humility and love.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. (Romans 12:1)
It’s as simple as that right? Just be a living sacrifice. No explanation needed. Well, wait. What does it mean to be a living sacrifice? What does it mean to live in a manner worthy of the Gospel (Philippians 1:27)?
I think it can be summarized well with this verse:
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Overall, this looks like getting in the Word and in prayer every day in order to spend time with God (John 15:5). This looks like loving your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39) and serving others well (Mark 10:45). This looks like fleeing from sins that entangle you and pursuing righteous (Hebrews 12:1-2). This is the big picture.
But sometimes we can get into the nitty gritty details about specifically what Christian living looks like in various areas and disagree.
Person A thinks reading a lot Christian books is necessary (I may or may not be in this camp…haha). Person B thinks listening to secular music is wrong. Person C thinks only holding hands is appropriate while dating. Person D thinks and so on and so on.
I fear that when we get into these conversations, when we disagree and can’t find common ground on things that are so minimal, we are missing the common ground we do have. We are missing the Gospel. We are missing what this whole thing is about. We need to back “home” (or paragraph 2 of this post). We need to be reminded of the grace God has extended to us and look at the bigger picture. If we don’t, the enemy has us right where he wants us: distracted, divided and disheartened.
So this year, let’s all make it our mission to remember the Gospel in every conversation. Remember it when we agree, disagree, correct, love, rebuke and spur one another on. With the hope that these disagreements will be minimal because we remember that we are all playing on the same team.
a little berdie 