The Christian Life

A CHRISTIAN LIFE

COL. 3:12-25

I hope that everyone here this morning had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year. I am sure that we all got a lot of presents and we probably made quite a few New Years resolutions. This year as I was thinking about the direction I wanted my life to go I thought about all the past New Year resolutions that were not kept and the few that I actually tried to keep and the less that I managed to keep and I wondered at how mundane and worldly they were. Lose weight, nothing wrong there, be a better person, that great, get a better job, sounds good to me and so on. But look at them look at your New Years resolutions of the past. What was the reason why you made them? They were all done for our benefit. This year I made a new resolution. I dedicated my life to God COMPLETELY and placed it in His hands and anything that needed to be changed or worked on God will do it. I am going to strive to live everyday my life as if it was the last day of my life and not look to future of the here and now but to the eternal life that I have with God. I am not going to let the things of this world capture me. I am going to let the things of God live and dwell in me. My job, the bills, doctor’s appt. or whatever else the world throws at me will not become the single most important thing in my life. No not even my family will come before my commitment to God.

Robert Chapman of Barnstaple, a great friend of the late George Muller of Bristol, was once asked, “Would you not advise young Christians to do something for the Lord?” “No,” was the reply, “I should advise them to do everything for the Lord.” Jesus did everything for us and we are to do everything for Him out of love. Too many of us have gotten hooked on duty. It is our duty to come to church on Sunday morning. It is not your duty it should be your need to come and fellowship with your brothers and sisters. To be feed with our Father’s word. There was this dog who boasted of his ability as a runner. Then one day a rabbit that he was chasing got away. This brought a lot of ridicule from the other dogs because of his previous boasting. His explanation: “You must remember that the rabbit was running for his life, while I was only running for my dinner.” How many to day are only running for their dinner. We should be running for our life.

There is a lot more to being a child of God than just coming to church on Sunday morning. Now I want you to capture this God describes the life of one of His children in Col. 3:12-25 turn with me we read God’s word in His house this morning.

Brother and sisters today God is coming to us with this thought. Are we placing God first in our life? Do I seek to please Him before everything else in my life? Does my Character show that I put God first? Now I am not here to judge anyone or to admonish anyone. No instead I am giving you the tools that we all need to examine our life and discover if we are truly living for God or not. I just ask that today you honestly examine your life. That you put aside your pride and submit to God’s word and that we all examine our life not through our eyes but through the eyes of God. I pray for the next 45 minutes or so that you put aside your wants and needs and take an honest look at your life. Life is far too short that we as Christians live it in any other way besides the way that God meant for us to live.

Our testimony is to important in this dark world to live the life that God entrusted us with in any way that we want too. Someone is watching us and our life is a witness to them. Are you responsible for some one not seeing a Christian example and missing out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

So what is the character of a Christian? A Christian is compassionate and loving. We love people not because of who they are but because Jesus loves us and His love is in us. We love people and we don’t worry about their skin color, sex, social status, or any other little prejudice that Satan has come with in the past or in the future. We love simple because Jesus loves them.