How Simple is the Christian life! How Simple is the Christian Life?

Been reading a lot of peoples’ blogs lately and the posts have made me a bit burdened. The Christian life is suppose to be freeing yet oppression seems more common place than not. Friends and family all around are not experiencing the true joy that God says he will bring to everyone’s life. Not joy in circumstances but the joy that comes from God amidst the tough things of our lives. The peace that surpasses all understanding

<>It would be easy for me to blame God for these lives of strife and drudgery but I won't, I know better... God says, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." <>

We so easily forget, or maybe more so are unwilling, to put into action the knowledge that we have seen as true in the past. The knowledge that God’s teachings are easy and not in anyway burdensome. It has been said to me, in many different ways and at many different times that the Christian life can be boiled down into a handful of simple truths. I think we all know what these truths are and how they elude each of us at the current point of our journeys. The questions that we all ask so often in our lives, the unanswerable questions that make us burdened and cause such drudgery in our lives, are not the questions that God wants us to be asking. These questions start out with, and aim to end at, not the simple burdenless life that God provides, but instead a life bent on fullfilling “me”. <>

We are immersed in a society that inhales knowledge like it is the air that keeps us alive. We don’t need any more “new” knowledge to live the simple Christian life. We don’t need to answer any new questions about who “I” am, what “I” need to do to get “myself” out of ______(fill in the blank) situation. What we are all asking is the same old stuff that has been contemplated since the early days of Christianity and most likely even before. There is nothing new under the sun. We don’t need the newest, hippest, post-modern, i-pod enabled mp3 Rob Bellesque message to tell us what hundreds have said in the past… It not about you, it’s about God and it’s not that hard… maybe hard to do, but not hard.

Christian perfection is not so severe, tiresome, and constraining as we think. It asks us to be God's from the bottom of our hearts. And since we thus are God's, everything that we do for him is easy. Those who are God's are always glad, when they are not divided, because they only want what God wants and want to do for them all that he wishes. They divest themselves of everything, and in this divesting find a hundredfold return. Peace of conscience, liberty of heart, the sweetness of abandoning ourselves in the hands of God, the joy of always seeing the light grow in our hearts, finally, freedom from the fears and insatiable desires of the times, multiply a hundredfold the happiness which the true children of God possess in the midst of their crosses, if they are faithful. ~Francois Felelon 1651-1715.

<>Look what you all did now… you got me all fired up. I’ll post more when I come down a bit so I don’t offend everyone I know.

Ok one last thought to leave you with from my old buddy Francois Feleon..

Those who fear to see too clearly what this love asks fool themselves by thinking that they have this watchful and devoted love. There is only one way to love God: to take not a single step without him, and to follow with a brave heart wherever he leads. ~Francois Felelon 1651-1715.

Q: How do we really live this simple yet often hard to implemt life?

Disciples, undisciplined disciples. Why am I one of the many undisciplined disciples?

"Non Discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it cost exactly that abundance of life Jesus said that He came to bring." ~Dallas Willard

Been reading and listening to messages and devotions lately with and interesting theme, discipleship. In this I've realized that I fall short so often and I'm wondering why. I guess It's just the business of life and maybe the death of true joy in the people around us. Maybe we just trade in our joy and fire for the tame life; the life, that from most reasonable peoples eyes, would seem the best road to take... but I don't want that life. It's just not the best, not for me, not for my family or even the people in my life that see my tamed actions and think that that is "ok".

What IS the best, is a life of true discipleship. A life where I believe that God will speak to others through me. A life where "I", "my", & "mine" have no clout. Where they are not used to describe myself, or my life in any idol based way. A life full of adventure where I'm an integral part of the story that God has designed. A part that is pleasing to God and honors Him. I don't want to be luke-warm anymore, I don't want to be tamed, or sold into slavery via the "American dream". Will it be easy, NO, but what really IS easy in this imperfect life? Will it be good in my eyes? Who really know, but in God's eyes it will be and it's not about me anyway.

I have dreams & desires, yes of course. Some probably from God and & probably more are not. I don't want to build my little kingdom but I do want to participate in God's kingdom! How great would that be?!!! No worries about if I'm doing it right, or if it's sustainable. Instead I just get to revile in what He gives me daily and walk it out. Doesn't have to be huge, just day by day doing what God gives me in faith.

So my question for us all is this? 12 men, quite possibly teenage boys, (listen to Rob Bells "Dust of the Rabbi") profoundly changed the world. Not by building up their own kingdom and not by being tamed by the world. They were disciples, striving to do the simple but impossible... just trying to do what Jesus would have done.

Q: What is stopping you and I from selling the "American dream", the idols in our lives, our little glass houses that we think so safe, and instead using God's credit of the Spirit to affect this world that we live in?