AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN LIVING: PART 1

 

AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN LIVING: PART 1

JESUS CENTERED LIFE

Most of us live fragmented lives. Church life, home life, and devotional life (if we have it at all) are left unconnected, or weakly at the best.  We have always believed in work and entertainment, but we not even sure how they can be spiritual in nature. We compartmentalize our lives into a string of unrelated activities.

 

But the life God wants us to live has Jesus as its center and organizing principle, and the Holy Spirit as its empowering agent. This means that church, church life, personal devotions, and family all belong to, and are centered in JESUS. Such a life is possible only through the grace of the Holy Spirit.

 

But how does it work? Consider this: David was a member of a certain church. He worked as an engineer in a certain corporation, with more than 100 people under his charge. He was also very active in the life of his church and community, often preaching, giving Bible studies, and going to mission trips.

 

Seeing his love and passionate service for God and the way he was led and empowered by the Holy Spirit, people often said to him, “David, you need to be a pastor.” His answer to this always was, “I am already a pastor. I’m just being paid by the market place instead of by my church.”

 

He continued, “No pastor is allowed to be in my engineering firm, but I am here every day. When any employees are hurting, I hurt with them. When they rejoicing, I rejoice with them. I pray for them on a rotation basis and invite them over to my home.” He concluded by saying, “I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ disguised as an engineer.” If you look around David’s church you could see 20 engineers who came to the Lord as a result of His ministry.

 

David’s commitment to Christ touched every area of his life. Imagine what God could do with millions of you, disciples of Jesus Christ disguised as nurses, teachers, accountants, farmers, doctors, physicians, even pastors.

 

Therefore, we can summarize Jesus centered life as one that is lived with a passion for God’s presence, that continually experiences His power and grace, and reflects His love and vision. Living Christ-centered life changes how we relate to people, to ourselves, and to time, possession, pleasure, problems, and all of life.

Consider a wheel with four quadrants, spokes, and an outer rim. Jesus is the center of that wheel. My life is the outer rim, the spirit is the spokes. The wheels’ four quadrants each represent one of the four areas of a relationship. Relationship with God, with others, with self, and with resources. This model is Christ-centered, Holyspirit empowered and balanced in all relational aspects.

 

In Acts 2:36, Peter represented Jesus as the Lord and Christ, to whom people must respond. In Acts 2:42-47 we see a life that expresses such a response. The first-century believers had an intense passion for God. Their souls were pre-occupied with His kingdom, His purpose, His love, His creation, His people, and His vision for the world.

 

Acts 2 records their commitment to learning more about Jesus through study, to be connected to Him through prayer, and to tell the world about Him through evangelism and ministry. This radical life was not only seen in their religious observance, in their commitment to live or die in Jesus, but also in their time, their living, and giving.

 

A life centered on Jesus will be changed in every area. Turn every opportunity to make a difference for the kingdom of God. Let’s have Jesus at the core center of our lives, for salvation is through Him and Him alone.