Tuesday, August 1, 2017

"Simple and Complex"


"Simple and Complex"       
    
   No secrets, formulas, or methods exist regarding our living the Christian life.  The Bible rather calls us to relationship with God, a calling that involves His involved presence and our response of love, faith, consecration, obedience, and expectation.  This life centers in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and requires the leading and power of the indwelling Holy Spirit for growing experience of the walk to which our Heavenly Father calls us.

    "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

   The new birth ushers us into the reality of eternal life through fellowship with God.  Our reception and awareness are presently limited - "we see through a glass darkly" (I Corinthians 13:12).  However, we can see spiritual truth and reality if we have trusted the Lord Jesus.  We can know God and His Son, as revealed by the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures.  Returning to the theme of this essay, a formulaic view of the Christian life distracts us from the wonder of a life lived in relationship and fellowship with our Heavenly Father.  How could any mere method suffice to guide us into experience characterized by relating to an infinite Lord?  Biblical principles and doctrines all apply to the issue, of course.  However, one or even several verses, passages, chapters, and books are not meant to encapsulate everything involved in our walk with God.  Foundational doctrines unite with promises, commands, warnings, and even prophetic teachings throughout Scripture to inform our faith and and empower our steps.  The Christian life  thus requires determined response, assimilation, and application, again, as enabled by the Holy Spirit and our confident expectation in His working on our behalf.

   To live by faith is both simple and complex.  Our Lord would never have us to be overwhelmed by the challenge, but rather grateful for the possibility of a Christ-enabled bond with God that begins by resting in Him, and proceeds to our determination to "run with patience the race that is set before us" (Matthew 11:28; 12:1).  We run from rest, as it were, and we rest as we run by accessing God's strength for the journey.  Such grace received leads us to rejoice in a life lived in a multi-faceted reality of relationship with our Lord rather than mere ritualistic observance of supposed spiritual methods or formulas.  

"This is the way, walk ye in it… I am the way."
(Isaiah 30:21; John 14:6)
"To live is Christ."
(Philippians 1:21)

Weekly Memory Verse 
    Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Romans 6:11)
  

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