Simple question...maybe. Simple answer...maybe. Simple living...nope! Christian living is an active movement in the Christians life on all dimensions. In fact we can look at Christian living and know whether or not we have Christian life. If we are found to NOT have Christian living then the love of Jesus doesn't reside within us. Should we find ourselves in this conundrum we need to assess whether we are really able to call ourselves Christian. You know by now that I am a believer and have been for many years. I haven't always been an example of Christian living much less Christian life even though I claimed to be a Christian. The result of those times in my life is I wasn't living the Christian life. Yet, in spite of myself, God used me in many ways. Kinda confusing but then we look at ourselves and are harder on ourselves because Satan wants us to be distracted from the love of God. Christian living, in it's simplest form, is Christ living through us. Not me living through me. Yes, you and I will fall down and yes, we will have regrets. As Paul stated we are to put the past away and move forward with Christian living.
I've come to not like family reunions, class reunions and other reunions. Why? Because they tie me to the past. People have preconceived notions of who you and I are and reunions are there to remind us of our place within a group setting. While it may be nice to see people we know and love, it's not nice to stay anchored in the past. To do so isn't Christian living. In high school I was known as the failure and the stupid one. Teachers and classmates told me this. I was voted most likely to fail in my senior year of high school. I left the small town where I grew up and did 10 years in the US Army, 8 years as a police officer and was a minister in a Midwest town when there was a reunion in my home town. I went with my teenage son. We arrived and sat down in the diner to have some lunch. A father of one of my classmates came in, walked up to me, and said: "What jail are you out of now?" He was dead serious. Since I knew that small information like what I had been doing with my life was public knowledge in the small town (in any small town) I took affront to what he said. He said what he did to "put me in my place." Didn't work. I'm not tied to my past. Yet, he didn't change and probably won't. He, and his family, considered themselves Christians. You be the judge. Did they have Christian life and were they living Christian living?
While growing up I was told that I was German, Norwegian and maybe some Irish. Several months ago I had my DNA tested and found out that I am Irish, English and somewhere down the line German and French. As I've searched for my identity I've learned that a lot of my family history told to me isn't true at all. I've learned a lot but know that my real identity is in Christ. Sometimes we are told what isn't true with such believability that we think the lie is the truth. Churches do this all the time. Pastors stand in the pulpit espousing lies and people believe them. The church today isn't reflecting Christian life or Christian living. The Bible tells us they have a form of godliness but not from God. We live in a fallen world. I get that. But we don't have to live as fallen people. We have the choice whether we take what others say or live what Jesus lived. The two are not compatible. Remember that it's always your choice.
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