A Simple Godly Life

I don't sit here speaking from 30, 20, or even 10 years of experience living as a Christian in the cozy USA. I sit here in my first half decade of my walk, and I've learned quite a lot along the way.

Through my journey so far... it's been a struggle. In so many ways. Our freedom vs God's Will, the Bible, church, community, knowledge, conviction, historical evidence, all the denominations, what your purpose is, and the list goes on and on. It's really hard to grasp all of these things as a new Christian. You believe, and now you're on your journey into faith; just like me.

No, I am not fully there yet. I love Jesus, everything reminds me of Him, and despite my ADHD, I have somehow amassed a ton of Biblical knowledge through various mediums and the Bible itself. It's been a wild ride so far.

What I would like to do however, is maybe... just maybe help at least one new Christian, very early in their walk understand what's about to happen to them, and how to handle it in a much better way than I did. God has done some work in me... a lot of it, and it's still ongoing. It seems only right that I share some of struggles with the body of Christ and my walk in general, in hopes that you may learn from my suffering. We stand on each other.

So instead of thought dumping a huge and giant article of all my insane thoughts, ramblings and struggles, I will stick with 5;

1. The Heart
2. Patience & Suffering
3. The Great Commission
4. Cleansing The World
5. Give It To Jesus

The soul, your inner self, the heart... whatever you want to call it. It is the spiritual side of who you are; the unseen, the thing you feel but can't describe. The side of you that lights up, the side of you that inherently brings love. As a new believer, you likely have felt the spirit, you've experienced something supernatural within you, and you have felt the power of worship.

So your soul/heart is something that is fed differently. I think of it like health. You have physical, mental, and emotional. That's what you'll find in science. However, since it can't be measured and observed via physical things, we often forget the 4th thing; spiritual health. This is the heart the Bible speaks about. It's that void that you've felt, and likely will fill again that just never seems to be satisfied. The spirit is fed by faith and love. Despite whatever you think it might be, it's only something God can fill and make whole.

Know however, that just because you believe, does not suddenly mean you are a perfect human being. No, in fact we see Paul in Romans (7:13-20) talk about how he does what he shouldn't. It also doesn't mean that you are to BE perfect. Let me tell you something that you should never forget... willpower alone is not enough to solve any spiritual problem. This also goes for the mind as well... you can't rewire your brain in two seconds. Well most of us can't.

You will make mistakes. You will need a lot of work and cleansing (which we'll hit a little later), you'll need a lot of practice and patience, and you'll need to grow your faith. Look, all of it is fine. It's a process.

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) deals with the heart a lot; Jesus made many points there, but many times he mentions the heart. I always like to use one of his firsts where he talks about having lust in your heart, but not taking action... you've basically committed the sin already. He's very clear that you have to clean your heart and mind in order to move forward. This does however lead to my second struggle.

Before we even begin, we have to understand two things, because it makes all the difference;

1. God created time. Therefore... He exists outside of it. When hear we are on God's time, it's because He doesn't operate within it. We have no idea how He processes things. Time is meaningless.
2. Jesus suffered the ultimate form of punishment on the cross; it was unjust, it was brutal, it was humiliating, and He was disconnected from God for a period of time. That... my friends is true suffering.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about patience first. We need to take patience seriously. Whatever God is doing in you... it's likely not going to happen tomorrow. It might not happen for the next 5 years. There may be works that are never completed in you. It isn't about being smarter or shortcutting the process or even finding the "right thing" that God is trying to teach you... that's not even close to the point; the point is faith. Faith produces fruit. That's why you need patience.

You must remember that suffering is growth, therefore suffering is a blessing. Also remember why; God may in fact be refining you (Malachi 3:3). You must be put through the fire to be purified. You've got the stench and dress of the world all over you. Suffering may be for the sake of others. If they force you one mile, you do two. You respond with kindness.

Part of the whole process is patience and suffering, much like the silversmith. Here's what was a little hard to learn for me though; just because it's been a long time and I am in a period of suffering, that doesn't mean I have to be sad, depressed, or feel the need to get out. God doesn't give you struggles and pain so you can wallow in it or run away. You're supposed to embrace the situation and works that God has given you.

Again, have patience. Suffering is a blessing. Embrace it, love it, and don't let it ruin you. Pray through it. Trust that God is doing the right thing. Listen for his voice.

Oh God... save me now. I am an introvert by nature. I love my hobbies, I love my music, and I love working remotely without people over my shoulder. Being around folks is draining. When I started hearing my church preach about the Great Commission... I was like "what in the world have I got myself into?"

I spent quite a while trying to... I don't know... find my place in it? Maybe I need to tailor my music to preach. Maybe I am meant to be at my corporate job to spread the light. Maybe I need to do missions. Nothing just ever felt right. Like what in the world am I to do? I don't want Jesus coming back and saying "who did you save?" and my answer be like... "well I couldn't because I am introverted."

But that raises the question... what would He say to me if that was my response? From what I understand about the Bible, I think He would respond in a way that basically asks... "why didn't you let me work through you?"

That's it right there. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talks about being the salt and the light of the world. He has all these beatitudes on what YOU are supposed to be. No, it's not selfish. You first have to be connected to God, grow your faith, put more and more trust in the Lord. If you are to be salt, you must sit and be refined. If you are a light, then you first must be lit. Who does that? You guessed it, God.

You keep your faith and relationship with Jesus. You fill yourself up with Him and Him alone. So much so that you overflow. Through Jesus and that overflow, God has the opportunity to do good works through you. Yes, as humanity under God, we should be filling the Great Commission... but we all know we can't do this alone. We need the Lord to do it... through us, not by us.

To summarize - unless the Holy Spirit is leading you, what you need to do is less... hurry and preaching, and more just being filled. Often we think we're the main characters, we're supposed to be the next Paul... but no. There's a good chance that all you ever do is put the fruits of spirit into the world, and that light brings people to God.

"Wait what?" - you ask. Well, it's not about you cleansing the world, but rather you being cleansed FROM the world. You cannot be and exist alongside the world if you are the world and not the Lord. As a Christian early in your faith, you will find over the next couple to several years, lots of things will change. That's okay... that's the Holy Spirit at work.

You may love horror movies, and suddenly you have an unexplainable uneasy feeling watching them. You might have a favorite musical artist and suddenly, they just don't hit the same anymore. You may have habits that you just suddenly start to hate. You might have a group of friends that suddenly start to annoy you and you can't stand them and what they do anymore. All of this is the Holy Spirit guiding you.

And everyone's being guided down their own path. This is called conviction and it'll look different from Christian to Christian. You may have to let go of your favorite things because they're idols, while your sibling in Christ can still do it without a problem. That's because the Holy Spirit knows you. He's not just guiding you down the "one and only" Holy pathway... no no my friend. As Paul puts it, we are the body of Christ, we all have different functions, therefore the Spirit is leading you down your own path.

There's a lot of things that will happen that don't make sense. They might hurt, or be hard to let go. Don't shy away from the feeling though; it's deeper in the spiritual you, the 4th health I talked about earlier. If you do it, follow the path, listen to the Holy Spirit trust Him... it will work out for the best.

You will hear this phrase so much, or something similar. Lay it at the feet of Jesus. Give it to God. Things like that, and it's true. The problem I ran into is... um... what does that even mean? Like HOW do I give this to Jesus? I pray and pray, I try and try, and nothing seems to work.

Let me save you some of the time friends. You should pray, you should try, but that's not what folks are really asking you to do; God wants you to release control, be led by Him, and stop the anxiety over it. That's it.

Alright fine, we'll dig deeper; it's about faith. Faith drives it all. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that He feeds the birds and they aren't like us... He cares about us so much more, so why are you anxious about what comes next? That idea of faith though... it's hard to have faith in our lives. Don't feel bad when you fail; you are certainly not alone.

The world tells us all the time that we can be or do whatever we want, that it's all up to us, that we need pull ourselves up by our bootstraps or whatever. No no. We should certainly try our best, but we should also have all the faith in the Lord and just keep moving forward.

Being a new Christian is a struggle bus of all of life. Everything gets tossed into a soda bottle, shaken up, and popped open. You get soaked, you get uncomfortable, and you suddenly feel like you don't belong anywhere.

Hey... it's supposed to feel that way. Becoming Holy means you are different from everyone else. Yet, you are the same. You have similar struggles, similar battles, similar sins. This is why the Body of Christ is so important.

While this article hopefully helps you... go find a Church. Go get involved in the community. Don't worry about denomination or anything... just literally find a place that feels like home and follows the Lord and teaches you the word. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but I personally, would rather you join a Christian community of some sort, even if they differ in my personal beliefs and strengthen your faith, than to never really have the faith and eventually deconstruct... it tends to happen to people fairly quickly. These people should feel like friends. They should constantly talk about Jesus and the Lord. They should feel like a group you can be open and honest with. You need it. Trust me, it's about the hardest thing in the world for me, but I know I need it to.

With that being said, keep the faith, love Jesus, and love your neighbor as you would yourself.