Christian Living!

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:8-9)

There is a famous quote about Christianity. I can’t remember it, exactly, but it is something like ‘If you believe in Jesus or if you surrender your heart to Jesus, life will be easy-peasy!’ If we hear this quote and know that God takes care of us, we probably want to surrender our hearts to Jesus. However, if something bad or unfortunate circumstances happen, we slip back into our old lives as being non-believer. Therefore, we put Christianity on the test as it depends on feelings. Yes, Christianity is doing life with God, which means that He takes very great care of us (Deuteronomy 31:8). But that doesn’t mean that life would be piece of cake (Matthew 7:13-14). Why then surrender hearts to Jesus? It is because our lives are going to be simpler than ever before. We may not notice this right away but as time goes by, we begin to realise that it is true, especially if we have started to consider Jesus as our friend (John 15:9-17) and the Spirit of God as our comforter (John 16:7-15). We are able to talk to Him anytime and He talks to us through the Bible as it contains His Word. Douglas Harink states, “We live in the fullness of time of God’s gracious patience—a time given to us in which to repent.”

Although having burden in life basically means living a hard life, satisfaction can be burden as well because we have to keep find things that can completely satisfy us. We may get headaches from finding a satisfaction. I know this as I experienced this any times. However, if we find one in Jesus, it becomes a true and eternal one. This is probably because Jesus Christ is the Eternally Spiritual Being (John 7:37-39) and we are created to be in relationship with God through faith in Jesus (Ephesians 1:3-14). Harink says that everybody needs to be woken up to true living in Jesus Christ. I think I have been in need in waking myself up, especially finding satisfaction in Jesus. My struggle is that I have selfishness, deeply rooted within me. I believe I’m not addicted to television but when I become so bored, I eventually watch T.V. Watching television is not bad but if I am bored, I can’t go to Jesus, which is the source of eternal satisfaction. This is what I have to work with.

Meditate on 1 John 1:5-2:2 and ask yourself two questions: ‘Is there anything I need to be repenting about before God?’ ‘What am I lacking as a devout Christian?’