Introducing the Christian Journey

Get ready to blow it. No matter how hard you try, there will be times when you’ll fall flat on your face. This book will challenge you with the call to live holy, but keep in mind – this is our goal. There will be times when you feel like you’re on top of the world and untouchable by temptation. Then the next thing you know, you’re asking yourself how you could be so foolish.

Jesus picked the least qualified men to become the apostles by which He laid the foundation of the church. God’s entire plan rested on men who blew it. During the greatest need of Jesus’ ministry, He took His strongest leaders to pray with Him, but they kept falling asleep. And then everyone abandoned Him and fled when Jesus was arrested. The odd thing is, Jesus foretold that they would all flee and leave Him alone. The Lord built His plan around men He knew would fail.

God took these imperfect and ill-equipped men and turned the world upside down. This is your life and God’s calling for you. It’s God’s good pleasure to take you – the one who knows to do good but keeps doing what you know you shouldn’t do, and fails to do what you should do – and places you into His perfect plan to do His perfect will. And then rewards you for what He does in your life.

What kind of a gospel message is this?

God does not expect perfection from you. He expects you to reflect His perfection – even when you’re in the midst of your own failures. Because it isn’t about you. It’s about God. The power of the Lord is revealed when ill-equipped people submit themselves – failure and all, to Him. For when you are weak, He shows Himself strong on your behalf.

When you blow it, don’t think God’s anger seethes against you, but recognize your human weakness and His ability to lift you up beyond your limited capabilities. And this all centers around your relationship with Him. Your spiritual condition is not dependent upon your ability to be good, but your intimacy with Christ.

Becoming a good person is not the call of Christianity. Learning how to abide in fellowship with God is the call. And through the relationship, you become more like Christ and He transforms you, one day at a time, into the person He is making you to be. It isn’t about your ability to be righteous, but your walk with God who is the author of faith and righteousness.

In this book, my goal is to do two things. Change the way you look at the Christian faith, and help you gain a deeper understanding of what it means to walk with God.

Most people approach Christianity as though they are trying to appease an angry God. The truth is that Christianity is God reaching out to us with the goal of restoring mankind to perfect fellowship with Him. Scripture focuses on showing us how we can conform our lives to an unchanging, eternal God who desires for us to experience perfect fellowship and inherit eternal promises.

We are called joint heirs with Christ. The kingdom is our inheritance. Not earned, but given to all who are sons and daughters of the Lord.

Christianity is so much more than just making sure of heaven. Many evangelistic methods present themselves as a ticket to heaven, or some type of fire insurance to escape hell. I once approached the gospel this way, but I’ve discovered these approaches miss the mark. Since the Bible says, “It’s not that we love God, but that He first loved us,” a relationship centered upon love should be the starting point of everything we do.

The Christian life is more than waiting for heaven. It’s about the journey – your walk with God and fellowship with God’s children. Without understanding what it means to walk by faith and experience living in the Spirit, we are shortchanging our lives and missing the great walk of intimacy the Lord has prepared for each believer.

Humans are complex creatures. Sometimes we have the tendency to turn simple tasks into complicated feats. When we expect something to be difficult, we often set out to find a complex solution. This can blind us to the simple things standing before us. Let me give an example.

Two guys dropped by a house to run a quick errand. When they returned to the car, the doors were locked. The driver, a friend of mine, had a bad habit of leaving his keys in the ignition, so they were locked out. They borrowed a coat hanger, shoved it through a crack in the window, and began digging for the door lock. The little boy next door watched with interest.

Minutes rolled by and frustration set in. Both guys took turns poking and prodding until one made a desperate suggestion. “We might as well just break the window.” Not wanting to pay for a window, the driver took another try with the coat hanger.

To his surprise, the door popped open. Stunned, he stepped back. Two little feet emerged and there stood the neighbor’s kid. “How did you get in there?” my friend asked. A few moments ago he was standing outside the car.

“The back door was unlocked,” he said.

While they were digging on one side, the kid decided to try the doors, and found one open. It was a simple solution, but no one thought about trying the back doors.

Faith is often like this. People search for complicated formulas, rules, and lists of to-do’s. But the truth is, faith is so simple, a child can understand. Look at 2 Corinthians 11:3

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Did you catch the main point? Simplicity that is in Christ.

Years ago I discovered an amazing truth. The more I learned the scriptures, the more I discovered how simple God’s truth really is. For most of my life, I approach the Bible as a mysterious book, filled with complicated theological laws. For many, this is how the Bible appears. Once I asked a group of men and women to explain what doctrine meant. The answers varied in their wording, but the most common consensus was something like: Arguing about theology and complicated biblical philosophies.

When I pressed for a definition of theology, the idea was professors and theologians disputing over words and meanings.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. This may be what our modern era has made theology and doctrine into, but as the Apostle Paul stated above, the goal of scripture is to maintain the simplicity that is in Christ. The Bible only becomes complicated when we bring in outside influences, and lose sight of the intention of the word. In fact, the word ‘doctrine’ simply means, ‘The teachings of scripture.’

The Bible is written on the sixth or seventh grade level. Few of the scholarly terms we see thrown around are actually in the scriptures. The Bible isn’t complicated and is written for the benefit of all. God’s intention is to communicate to you all things that pertain to your life and godliness. In the scriptures we first see the revelation of God to us, and then the reconciliation of our lives to Him. From this gift of the revelation of God’s love, all things flow.

Jesus said that the evidence that we are His disciples will be our love for one another.[1] The Bible also explains that when we reduce all things to the basics, these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.[2] Scripture also teaches that to be right with God is to abide in God’s love.[3] Receiving love is how we discover the depth of God’s purpose for us.

Could it be any simpler than this? Through the foundation of God’s love, everything else is fulfilled. This book will begin with what it means to love, and then we’ll examine the simple truths that guide our spiritual understanding-which springs from a loving relationship with our God.

Truly, the Christian life is simple to understand. The challenge is that we naturally want to make things complicated.

There is a story in the Old Testament about a ruler named Naaman who visited Israel because he heard a prophet could heal him. Elijah the prophet didn’t do as Naaman expected. Instead of visiting the sick man and making a big show, he sent a messenger with a simple instruction, “Go and wash in the Jordan River.”

Naaman stormed away in a fury. In essence, he complained that he expected the prophet to come and do something grand, do something ceremonial, and give him some great instruction. As he journeyed to his home country, a servant came to him and said, “If the prophet had asked you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more should you obey when he says, ‘Wash and be clean?’”

Naaman’s response is typical human nature. The simplicity in Christ is just to wash and be clean, but we want to create a complicated system where we feel as though we are accomplishing something. Yet, like Naaman, we need to stop and realize the simplicity of truth, and take it to heart. When Naaman agreed to obey, his life changed. The same is true for the Christian life.

To walk in victory, there are only a few basic keys to understand – and none are complicated. As we move forward, keep one thing in mind. This book cannot change your life. In fact, no book can change your life. This book seeks to give you the tools so that you can apply yourself to the truth of scripture. The Bible says we must be doers of the word and not hearers only. Hearing (or reading) can give you the information, but it only profits those who are willing to apply themselves to the truths they learn. As the Lord said, “My ways are not your ways.” The challenge of faith is to believe the simple truth of God, even when it contradicts our personal feelings or ideas of how things should be.

Each step into faith reveals the truth of God’s plan and reveals the next nugget of truth that had once been out of view. The word is called a lamp unto our feet. A lamp gives enough light to see the next step. Though we are told where the path is leading, we are also stepping out of the comfort zone of human nature and into the uncharted territory of walking in the Spirit.

Even if we know and believe the Bible, it isn’t faith until we step onto the path of belief. Without stepping out, knowledge doesn’t benefit us and we cannot move forward. Understanding truth is only profitable when we believe to the point of faith. With that in mind, let us explore the life giving truth – the simplicity of the faith.

[1] John 13:35

[2] 1 Corinthians 13:13

[3] 1 John 4:16