DIFFERENT HOW?

If you read my post from last week you will know that there is more I would like to say about the ‘permission to struggle’.

When we don’t feel we have it, not only does it alienate us from each other, the result of which is we struggle alone (the subject of last weeks post), but it also alienates us from those who don’t know Christ. And the result of this is lost opportunity for people to come to know Him.

I know there is no shortage of people who believe that Christians are all a bunch of hypocrites. But there are also people who are not Christians but wish they could be but know in their hearts that they could never do it (‘it’ being the stuff that Christians are supposed to do). This relates back to the ‘perception’ that we create (if we aren’t careful) that we are really doing it (‘doing it’ meaning we don’t struggle).

The truth of the matter is that real Christians struggle with anger, impatience, lust, greed, self-centredness, addiction, resentment (need I go on?) ... just like everyone else. Sometimes we mistakenly feel that admitting this is somehow a blow to Christianity. After all, Christians are supposed to be different, right?!

Well, this is definitely where the rub comes isn’t it. We are supposed to be different. It is pretty hard to get away from that truth when we have Jesus saying things like … “People (are like this or do things like this)… but it should not be so with you…”

Yes, we are to be different, but just what is that difference and how does it work?

There is definitely change (difference) that comes when we come to that initial acceptance of Christ. It is a major shift in our allegiance, if you will, when we entrust ourselves to Him. The Bible also makes it clear that this simple act of faith on our part is met with absolute forgiveness on God’s part, who, consequently comes personally to live in us from that time forward. We have God in us! It has to be one of the greatest understatements to say this constitutes a substantive difference!

However, in order to really understand what this means we have to understand what God is like. He doesn’t come to ‘take over’ and then control us or manipulate us into holiness. He doesn’t ‘operate’ us like you would a machine. Because He isn’t like that and it’s not what He is all about. He comes so that we can have a relationship with Him; so that we can know Him and experience the wonders of life as He created it to be in relationship with Him.

This all points to a process and this point is a very important one. We change over time (becoming different from what we were) as we learn to trust Him and learn His ways on a very experiential level. It’s all relational and it’s all personal. And yes, this involves struggle. Paul put it this way, “Work out your salvation … for it is God who works in you…”

There are probably a number of different directions that we could go in as we contemplate these things but here is what I want to say to you today. If you are a Christian (that is to say, if you have placed your trust in Christ to receive forgiveness and eternal life), then, yes, we are different in that we trust Christ to save us and His presence in our lives is the most wonderful thing in the world. BUT, we have no difficulty relating to those who struggle with every temptation common to man. Your struggle is a vital part of your story that you have to share with the world. It’s hard.

If you are not a Christian but would like to be, what you need to understand is that becoming a Christian is entering a relationship. It is not primarily about what we do or don’t do. Those things are more consequential. It is about knowing Christ and learning to trust Him and to live for Him. That isn’t something that all happens at once in a moment of time. It is something that is worked out over a lifetime. It’s hard, but it’s the only battle worth fighting.

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” Philippians 3:10-16