WHAT'S NEXT? Chapter 3 - Live A Holy Life

                                Chapter 3 - Live A Holy Life

 "And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."  Mark 1:4

"Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming... Repent and believe the good news!”  Mark 1:14,15

" The disciples went out and preached that people should repent."  Mark 6:12


       The gospel or good news that you received when you prayed to receive Christ has always been, even from the start, a gospel of repentance. That's what John the baptist, Jesus, and the disciples preached. You may not have been told this when you got saved but this has been what you have been saved into.

      What does repentance mean? It basically means to change your mind - to turn and head the other direction. I see this in two categories in the Christian life. First of all, it is essential to salvation in that prior to coming to Christ you were trusting your own good works to get to Heaven. When you prayed to receive Christ, you acknowledged that you were wrong - you turned from trusting your good deeds to forsaking that way of thinking to trusting Jesus' good deeds on your behalf. That was your first act of repentance and that's what saved you through faith.

     The second act of repentance is the day to day battle we are all in and will be the rest of our lives. Prior to our salvation we were the ones calling the shots. We were the master of our own universe. When we get saved we are pledging to surrender control of our life to God. Following Jesus is an act of repentance where we turn from heading our own direction to following His direction - we do what He says not what we say. That's what it means when the Bible talks about Jesus as being Lord of our life. Lord means master. If you aren't on board with that you didn't really understand salvation and probably aren't saved. Are you OK with that? Can you say, "OK, Jesus, whatever you tell me to do, with your help, I want to do it."?  You see, that is repentance and salvation without repentance is not salvation.

    So, let's say you understand this and truly want Jesus to be Lord of your life. How do you go out doing this on a daily basis? First of all you need to remember you are not a human doing, you are a human being. Christianity isn't about doing a bunch of stuff it is about becoming more like Christ. So how do we become more like Christ?

    The first thing to remember is that when you received Christ the Holy Spirit came into your heart. You have God inside of you. I like to picture it like Spiderman. The radioactive spider bites Peter Parker and his body starts being transformed. He starts clinging to walls, spinning webs, and has a spider sense because something has come inside him. That's what happens when the Holy Spirit comes inside of us. That's what I mean by becoming. We start to act differently, think differently, desire different things just by the very fact that the presence of God has come inside.

    The second part of living a holy life comes from what we studied in the last chapter. It would be easy at this point to make a list of do's and don'ts and say follow these rules. The problem is that would be overwhelming, disheartening, and make Christianity look like a bunch of rule keeping rather than a life of freedom. Also you may not be able to accomplish some of those virtues yet. It's like going to a gym to start a fitness plan and your trainer says bench press 250lbs 6 times while you are lucky at this point if you could do 150lbs once. In the last chapter we talked about reading the Bible and letting God talk to you through it. For example let's say you are reading in Colossians and you come to verse 13 of chapter 3 and you read;

   "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

    Suddenly the Holy Spirit brings to your remembrance someone who you are holding a grudge against. You ask for God's help to forgive them and love them (that's another verse). That's how it works. The Christian life is like a marathon run not a sprint. It's about as I look at my life and others look at my life, I'm not the same person I was three years ago. I am slowly being transformed into the image of Christ. I'm not sinless but I sin less.

     You will find that there are certain sins that you just can't seem to defeat. Just remember there is no sin that can't be defeated so don't give up. You may want to share this with your accountability partner. Chances are that they are struggling with a sin also and you can hold each other accountable and pray for victory for each other.

     In the early Church, in Antioch, followers of Christ were first called "Christians". What it meant was "little Christs". They meant it to be derogatory but we embrace it. To be compared with Christ is confirmation that we are beginning to live a holy life. There are so many people out there who claim to be Christians but you can't tell it from their behavior. We like to say, "If they were on trial for being a Christian, they wouldn't be convicted." Don't be that person! Please!