My Pastor has always said, “Being a Christian is not hard, its challenging”. These words ring 100% true. I broke this simple phrase down into several pieces so that I could make one big sentence that worked behind those 8 words. Walk with me on this one.
The Bible says in Matthew 7:13-14 – “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that lead to life, but only a few find it”. So what does this mean? Lets break it down.
“For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction”. So, we know that this life has so much to offer in terms of sin. There is sex – in every form except whats performed in the marriage bed. There is drugs, and yes…. tobacco is a form of a drug. Then there are the biblical sins, greed, lust, pride, sorrow, wrath, gluttony and sloth. That covers them all. Every sin we commit falls under one or more of those categories. Looking at things this way, we can see that this is almost like walking through a gate as wide as a 50 lane highway. This today is the equivalent of what we call – LIVING! Get out, enjoy life, do what we want, when we want, with who we want and its all good. Nobody gets hurt when I do what I want to do, to and with myself, but me if I’m not careful. This gives us the courage to do whatever we want and completely disregard or “forget” about what the Bible says. Fact of matter, God and His word is never a factor when we are -living. There is an unspoken conception that we are going to live as long as we can, and we will serve God when we are old. Well, sometimes we don’t get to “old”. As we can see, death comes to the young and the old. You may not get the opportunity to get old.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20– Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. We know that by smoking, excessive and hard drinking, premarital sex, unhealthy eating, not grooming and caring for yourself is not taking care of the temple that God has graced you with. If we are to house the Holy Spirit, He needs a clean and pure place to reside. In all that we do, we should give God glory and praise. Its fine, to look good on the outside, but what about the inside?
“But small is the gate and narrow the road that lead to life, but only a few find it” This means. If you desire to serve the Lord with all your heart, then you know that there are laws and decrees that we live by. We don’t need to “live” in the ways of the world. We can do things in the manner which represents God and still be completely satisfied. Why is this challenging? As Christians, we still possess the same needs and desires as everyone else. These don’t lie dormant as we go through this Christian life. They are very much alive and active. Let’s take a look at sex. I am a single Christian woman. I have made it my business to not have sex until I’m married (and it has been a long – wooo). Now, of course I am far from a virgin and I know what sex is and what it feels like. I still desire it. I am aware that to give in to this desire will cause me to sin. For me to think the act -lust, to perform the act -fornication, Masturbation (Goes back to 1 Cor. 6:18-20) – which is considered an unnatural sex act or self abuse. So if these thing are a sin, then how do we shake them? Well, the first thing is to call on God. When we get caught in our feelings, most of the time, we are not thinking about God. We are distracted by our thoughts and feelings. So our first call for help is to call on the Lord. He is always there, and He will give you a way of escape. If its too bad, then start to praise Him. Your praise alone will pull you out, but this only works if you truly want out of the feelings you’re in. Well now… we have established that lust is a sin, we have established that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, therefore, anything that we do to our bodies that could hurt us, is a sin. So, I know that I shouldn’t have sex before marriage, the Bible speaks of keeping yourself until you are married. If I was to decide that I couldn’t hold out anymore, then I would open myself up to AIDS/HIV, STD’s, Herpes…. Then this is going to cause me to more than likely have to take medications the rest of my life to control these diseases, which could ultimately take my life. The Bible says in Romans 6:23 – The wages of sin is death, but the Gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That one sin could cost me my life or at least the quality of it. This is when you realize that had you decided to say no, this more than likely wouldn’t be an issue. Lets look at a more common overlooked sin – Gluttony. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I love to eat. I like food. Nonetheless, the Lord looks at gluttony the same way he looks at other sins. So, you fixed your favorite food and it tastes oh so yummy. Well, we all have had that one thing that was so good that even after we were full, we couldn’t stop eating it. You’re full!! STOP EATING – (in my Timon voice). This one thing that seems so harmless can cause a world of problems. Obesity, food poisoning, upset stomach, vomiting…..shall I continue? Very rarely will overeating kill you but it will make you a miserable soul until you can get rid of it. At this point, you say to yourself- I should have stopped. The aftermath of committing a sin makes us say, at some point, “I should have/shouldn’t have…”. This is where we reflect over our actions and realize that when it was all said and done, it wasn’t worth it anyway, and if it was good to you, you will feel guilty about enjoying whatever it was you did – AND be remorseful for following through. That’s a double blow. So, this is where we hear people say – “I don’t want to be a Christian if I can’t do anything, that’s boring” or, you may hear, “Times are different now”, “God knows my heart”, “I serve God”… Here is the reality, if you have not confessed with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is the son of God, who took the punishment and died on the cross for our sins, and who rose again, then you may say all those lines you have about your relationship with God, but when its all done, you are not saved. If you have accepted Christ, but your life does not reflect that, then you have stepped out of the will of God. If you were able to step outside of yourself and watch yourself, could you say that you represent God? How do you talk? How do you present yourself? If God was to meet you right in the middle of what you are doing right now, would he be pleased? If your answer to any of these is no, then you might want to make some changes. Realize, that your life in Christ, even if there was nothing else for us, should be enough. God is enough for us. This is the true meaning of LIVING! There are many things that we do decent and in order as Christians and are just as fulfilled. The difference is, when we wake up, we know where we are, we wake up with the same people we sleep with every night anyway so there are no surprises and we can still pass a drug test at work! The flesh though says, its okay to drink a little bit, just don’t get drunk. Well you know that you couldn’t handle liquor when you quit the first time, that didn’t change, so why start again. This is where you hear the devil say – Jesus drunk wine. But He didn’t drink to get drunk. The flesh says, this dress is just a little shorter than I would normally wear it, but I’m with my girls and they won’t let nothing happen to me, but then you spend 75% of your night fighting off perverts who saw you as available and willing because that’s how you presented yourself. Your flesh says, I know I probably won’t find a decent girl in the club, but we don’t know where God has my soulmate at, then you find yourself in a compromising position with a succubus. Being a Christian doesn’t mean we don’t have fun. It doesn’t mean we can’t have back yard BBQ’s, we can get together and have a good time, but when the night is over, even in our fun, we have not disrespected or disappointed God with what we are doing. As a Christian, we never want to disappoint God. We love Him and we want to stay in His protection and grace. We want Him to smile and be pleased with us. Everyday we sin and fall short of the Glory (Romans 3:23), but we serve a forgiving God. We repent with all sincerity and try not to make the same mistakes over again. Sometimes, often – we commit sins we don’t even realize we have committed, but again, we should make it an all day event to stay in conversation with the Lord. The more you stay with Him, the less likely you are to give into sin. As my Pastor says: “Its getting late in the evening and the sun is going down”. Don’t let the Lord come back and you are not ready to go with Him. Revelations 20:11-15 speaks of how we all will stand before Christ, however, if your name is not found in the book of life, you will not make heaven your home. You will be thrown into the lake of fire. At that time it will be too late to start believing in God. It will be too late to give your life to Him. It will be too late to beg for mercy. Don’t judge God. Who are we to judge HIM? Stop questioning why He commands this, or why he demands that. Everything that God commands of us is only for our good and His Glory. We were created to serve Him. God is not an evil God – don’t portray Him as such. God is not a malicious God – don’t portray Him as such. God is an AWESOME God. It was not your alarm clock that woke you up. It wasn’t your mother that breathed the first breath of life into your nostrils. It wasn’t evolution that made us human. God created us in His image. It wasn’t the universe. Something had to create that. It did not come from a bubble or the Big Bang Theory. Stop justifying your unbelief because things aren’t going your way, or something happened in your life that made you question God. Everything on this earth belongs to God. We belong to God. He is the giver of life and He can take it. Our lives are already written out for us. God knows us and what we are going to do before we do it. Don’t judge Him. Trust Him. My challenge to the unbeliever, put away YOUR thoughts about God and try Him for yourself. Understand that just because He does not conform to your ideas about Him, doesn’t mean that He isn’t for you. You may be hurting because of a loss and you may be blaming God, but trust Him to know whats best. He is our creator, He knows what he’s doing. Try Him. I dare you to fully open yourself up, read His word and understand for yourself. See if God does not make Himself real to you and relevant to your life. See for yourself the goodness of God. We don’t have much time. Hell is hot and if you’re anything like me, I can’t stand 70 degree weather, I definitely can’t spend my eternity in fire and brimstone. Be blessed Ms. Jae Share this:
