lifestyle

Christian Lifestyle Part 2

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Owned By God

From the creation account in the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, it is clear that human beings, along with the rest of creation are made by God and are subject to His reign. They are given a commission to rule over the created order, which has been structured in such a way as to provide everything tat people would need (Genesis 1:26-31).

By the time we get to Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve are faced with a test- will they obey the very clear commandment of God or will they go their own way? As we know, they choose to disobey God and the whole of creation starts to unravel.

It was always God’s intention that our autonomy or freedom is exercised in the context of a relationship with Him. We are meant to rule the creation, but not in our own power. God has made us so He gets to direct our paths.

In an age of individualism and self-fulfilment such as ours, it is unpopular to think that we should be subject to God in any way. We don’t like being told what to do, and will go to any lengths to avoid that.

As Christians, we need to understand that we were bought with the price of the blood of Jesus. We are no longer free to direct our own paths. Our first loyalty must always be to the God who redeemed us, and to the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians we read this:

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body. 
1 Corinthians 6:17-20.


You are not your own any more.

As followers of Jesus, our first thought must always be, “What does Jesus want me to do?” This is true of the daily decisions we make as much as it is true of the big life decisions.

When it comes to lifestyle choices such as career, where to live, who to marry, sexuality, money and possessions, everything must be subjected to the will of God. We will often find ourselves having different attitudes to the people of the world, making different choices and so on. That is the way of faith.

Increasingly, christians will find themselves swimming against the tide of popular opinion. We must be faithful to God, regardless of what other people think,

The Christian Lifestyle- Part 1

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For too long, christians have been taught that just saying a prayer will keep them safe from Divine Judgement. When we read the Scriptures, however, a different picture emerges.

We are not saved by our good deeds, but we are saved for a life of good deeds. (See Ephesians 2:10). In other words, we are saved by faith in Jesus’s completed work on the cross, and nothing we can do will impress God. On the other hand, once we are saved, the Lord expects us to live a lifestyle marked by care for other, worship to God and discipline in our fleshly desires.

Back in the day, our culture was marked by norms that basically derived from hundreds of years of church teaching and reflection on the Bible. That is not to say that everybody was christian, but it was assumed that there was a certain expectation of the way people would live.

Since the 1960’s there has been a rapid shift away from this belief that christian values should define our culture. This is shown by church attendance. In 1901, the year of Federation in Australia, approximately 95% of the population described themselves as christians, and weekly church attendance was standard. Today, less than 20% of the population attend church even once a month.

The development of the contraceptive pill in the 1960’s gave women the freedom to be as sexually promiscuous as men, with the protection of knowing they would be spared the inconvenience of a pregnancy. Sexuality was separated from reproduction and therefore marriage. Within a couple of generations, this has morphed into the expectation of freedom to have sexual activity with anyone of any sex and any number as often as desired.

In parallel with this, atheist, humanist and materialistic philosophies became adopted by the general population. After all, with our new freedom we didn’t need a God or a church to be telling us how to live our lives.

So over a period of 60 or so years, the church has gone from being able to set the agenda for the culture to being seen as “out of touch” with modern society. Many christians seem to take up the cultural values as the norm, rather than allowing Scripture to transform their thinking (Romans 12:2).

In this series of articles I will talk about the ways in which God’s standards run counter to the standards of the Bible in areas such as sexuality, possessions, lifestyle and so on.

The first principle we will cover is that all people are in a sense “owned” by God and therefore have a responsibility to live up to His plans not their own desires.