What It Takes to be a Better Christian

What is Love?

1.An intense feeling of deep affection. 2. A great interest and pleasure in something. 3. A person or thing that one loves

Do you love Jesus? Now some of you without hesitation say ‘yes’, others had reserves and thought “well I need to say yes, I want to say yes, but do I really?” while others may have said ‘no’ outright.

Jesus gives us a clear instructional guide to allow us to know whether we love the Lord or not. John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love for Jesus is inseparable from obedience. Luke 6:46 ““Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” This is a tough one. How many times have you personally said “Well I love the Lord, but I sure do make mistakes” or “I love Jesus but I also like to party, or drink, or cuss, or gossip, or slander, or whatever other sin God warns about” You see, you cannot have it one way or another. That is called being lukewarm. You are mixing what you call hot, love, with what is clearly cold, sin. When you mix them together it make a detestable concoction. Revelation 3:16 “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

1 John 5:2-3 “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” This phrase “not burdensome” means that following God’s word seems like a lot of ‘do this’ and ‘don’t do that’ (Which it kind of is) it is directions to lead your life in the best possible manner. It is also not a lot of aimless traditions such as other religions, but a guide to lead you to spiritual prosperity.

When Jesus was tempted by the devil He had these words to say...

Matthew 4:4 “But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” The first half of this verse is taken from Deuteronomy where the Israelites were wandering in the desert, and they did not have food to eat so God fed them every single morning. They depended on God for life.

Fast forward a few thousand years and Jesus adds the last half of the verse. “Man shall not live by bread alone....But by every world that comes from the mouth of God.”

This means that it is not good for a man or woman to simply go throughout their lives Eat, Play, Sleep, Repeat. They need to be living by the word of God. Life is extremely short. You never know when your last tomorrow is coming, then you enter eternity. You will spend eternity in one of 2 places; heaven or hell. Jesus is saying that it is more important to pay attention to your spiritual well being than it is your physical well being because regardless your physical body is going to die, but your spiritual life will live on forever. It is more important that you wind up in heaven, than to be cast into hell. So, you live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

This means you must read it. You have to read the Bible in order to know what God wants for you. How many of you would like to hear from God? We all would. Whether we want direction, clarification, instruction, or we simply just want to hear the supreme deity talk, we would not turn down hear from God. His words are the words already spoken to you, and written down so that you might read them. His bible is meant for you. If you want to hear from God, you must be reading His word.

God’s word does very little for you if you do not read it. If you come to our Wednesday night class then 0.006% of your week is spent in church, if you attend both the Wednesday night class and Sunday night class then that means 0.012% of your week is in church. If you attend Sunday morning (Including Sunday School), Sunday night, and Wednesday evening then 0.023% of your week is spent in church. All options are well under a tenth of a percent. You will not even spend 1% of your week in a church, NOT EVEN A QUARTER OF A PERCENT!!! So it is supper important to make sure you are in church, but it is crucial that you read outside of church because there is no way that you can become a strong Christian by only attending church alone. There is not enough instructional time.

If you are going to grow, if you are going to thrive, even if you simply want to survive, you must read outside of church on your own time.

Then you must apply what you read into your daily life. If you are going to read, but never let God’s word change you, then what is the point? James 1:21-22 says “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

The word deceiving means to be miscalculated. As if someone working a math problem, but they leave a step out of the process. They think that they have arrived at an accurate solution, but they mislead themselves. Christians deceive themselves when they think that they only have to hear the word of God, but they do not have to obey the word of God.

God’s word will transform your life, but only when you apply what He says. If you want to be a better Christian, then you must read His word, and you must apply what He says to your life.

This proves your love for God, improves your relationship with Him, and deeply grows your spiritual life.

Also, Deuteronomy 5:10 “but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Let me tell you this. God may not wreck your life if you do not follow Him, but He also will not protect your steps if you are going to move on your own, and if God is not protecting your way then you will eventually wind up in ruin. Whether it be 6 months, 6 years, or maybe a decade or two, it will all fall apart if it is not of God.

>If you love Jesus you will also feed His sheep. Now this instance was for Peter, and Peter was a pastor. He started the church, but this holds true to all Christians to a degree. No, most of you will not lead churches, some of you may though and I pray that all of you lead churches in some capacity whether it be serving on teams, committees, volunteer work, leading small groups, out reach, in reach, or any other faucet of the church. It is simply important to jump in and work within the church helping wherever and however you can.

I am sad to say that many Christians nowadays are lukewarm. They may be saved, which will give you the heat, but you really do not live a Christ centered life, which gives you the cold. Mixing it together creates a life that is unacceptable to God. He would rather you be one or the other. If you are ice cold then He could spiritually awaken you and give you life eternally. If He has given you eternal life then He is wondering why in the world you have taken it upon yourself to live in a manner that makes you cold.

Tonight you are either hot, lukewarm, or cold. If you are hot, awesome, keep going. I’ll do anything I can to help you keep it going.

If you are cold, then you need to be saved. You may be a good person, and God may be at work in your lives, I mean you are here fairly regularly, it isn’t like God is not around you, but you do need to be saved. If you would like to be, then reach out to me.

But if you are lukewarm, and you know your saved, I would caution you to take a look at your life and see where you are not surrendering yourself to the Lord. Maybe it is in your conversations. Maybe it is in your relationships. Maybe it is in your walk, He may be asking you to do things and you are continually telling Him no. Whatever you know you need to let go of, or that you need to start doing, I would encourage you to do so and not waste any more time being a watered down, fake Christian.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

You only live one life. Live it well.