Weekend, August 14, 2021
Don’t Settle for Substandard
“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10 NKJV).
Without question the Christian life is the greatest life there is. I’ve become more convinced of this as time passes by, especially when I look at some of my old high school friends and the course their lives have taken.
More than ever, I’m so thankful that at the age of 17 I chose to follow Jesus Christ.
But the Christian life is more than just praying a prayer or walking down an aisle and getting so-called fire insurance. God intended the Christian life to be dynamic, to be exciting, and to have a radical effect on our outlook and the way that we live.
That’s because Jesus Christ not only wants to be our Savior, but He also wants to be our Lord. He not only wants to be our friend, but He also wants to be our God.
I’m afraid, however, that many of us live a substandard Christian experience. In many ways, that’s an oxymoron because if it’s Christian, it shouldn’t be substandard. Yet, in a sense, many Christians fail to receive all that God has for them.
So why is it that in the first century, a handful of ordinary people turned their world, as they knew it, upside down? They managed to accomplish it without social media, the Internet, television, or radio.
How were these Christians able to do it?
I think we could sum up their success in one word: discipleship. They were true disciples of Jesus Christ, not fair-weather followers. They didn’t live an anemic, watered-down, ineffective version of the Christian life.
Instead, they lived the Christian life as it was meant to be lived, as Christ Himself offered it, and as the early disciples apprehended it. And if we’re going to impact our culture today, then we, too, must be true disciples of Jesus Christ.
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God used the Jesus Movement to reach an entire generation with the hope of the gospel. In Jesus Revolution, Greg Laurie shares the true story behind this spiritual awakening and the people God used to change countless lives. Written with Ellen Vaughn, this book offers an inspiring look at how revival spread during one of America’s most turbulent decades.
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