[344 words]
I have lost 300 pounds: two pounds 150 times. Many have. It is one thing to lose weight. It is a radically different thing to change our lifestyle. Yet diets fail. All how-to books ultimately fail. Why? Because they do not alter the lifestyle. There are no shortcuts. There is no magic. No pain, no gain. We must change our thinking, our values, our purposes, our direction, yes. our very lifestyle. We need to learn how to eat to live. It is that simple.
This also works down at church. You don’t join the church, get religion, experience a religious high. Baptism is the new birth, but Christianity is a life. You are born to live. A consumer-oriented, felt-needs religion fails. The church is not here to please. The church is not Magic Kingdom. You don’t merely take religious pills. You don’t have that one experience that lasts a lifetime.
Christianity is not a diet, it is a lifestyle. It begins with our sins, failures, lostness. We are lost, damned to a Devil’s hell. We cannot save ourselves. Our faith is in God. God was in Christ on a cross. This is our salvation. Jesus paid it all. It is of grace. It is found at the cross. Jesus is our Savior.
But He is also our faith. This simply means we totally believe Jesus knew how to Jive. He is the way, truth, life. He is full of grace and truth. This is our faith. This becomes our lifestyle. We have the mind of Christ, the disposition of Christ. the character of Christ. We become what we believe. We become who we are. This is not a fickle diet…this is a final lifestyle.
Paul says, “We are the aroma of Christ.” Only Jesus can live the Christian life. He re-lives that life in us. Paul says. “We are crucified with Christ.” The lifestyle of Jesus is the crucified life. We are to give to get, go down to rise up. We are the church, the family of God.
Charles Hodge
via Bella Vista Church of Christ
Bentonville, AR