I Have To Do That?

“God’s first concern is not what the Church does, it’s what the Church is. “Being” must always precede “Doing,” for what we do will be according to what we are. To understand the moral character of God’s people is a primary essential in understanding the nature of the Church. As Christians we are to be a moral example to the world, reflecting the character of Jesus Christ.” Ray Stedman.

Have you ever wondered why people resist spiritual transformation? I mean, it’s not as though their lives are these shining examples of happiness. As I said in a post a couple days ok, hypocrisy among us Christians is a fact of life. We do pretend to be happy when we’re not. We do pretend to have peace when we’ve been fighting like badgers all the way to Church. So, just what exactly are we hanging on to? What have we got to lose by giving up doing life our way and letting our Saviour become our Lord?

Reality is, if we don’t give the benefit of doubt to Jesus, if we don’t trust Him enough to die to ourselves, there won’t be, there can’t be any sanctification process. It seems to me that if we think we can be “saved” without a need to also be transformed, we do not understand what we’ve been save from. It is simply wrong to believe that we can be a Christian and never become a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus, someone whose character is being transformed and conformed to that of Jesus. Jesus didn’t say that if we don’t die to self and pick up our cross we won’t be a very good disciple. Jesus said that if we don’t give up doing things our way, He wouldn’t consider us to be His disciple’s AT ALL!

Jesus didn’t come to earth to walk with us in our sin. He came to earth so that we might be changed from someone who loves sin, to someone who loves God more than sin.

And that’s a good thing!

To not do this, to not accept Jesus as Lord and Master of our lives is to still live in rebellion to Him.

To continue to do what WE think is best and reject what Jesus tells us to do must surely call into question our motive and understanding of what it means to “come to salvation” in the first place.

To reject the transformation of our soul, our motives, our goal for living, means that we are little different than atheists, who think they are good people and who, at most, think they just need a little tweaking in order to be “good enough.”

Jesus didn’t come to tweak our character. Jesus came to create a new form of human life.

If you are saying to yourself, “Why do I have to do it God’s way?” you have no idea of who or what your Creator is or the awesome plan that He has in store for you.