How do we live?

I am never ceased to be amazed at how people live (including me). How we do all sort of crazy and wonderful and stupid things.

When I narrow this thought to how we live as Christians it becomes a very interesting subject. You may have a different perspective, based on a different perspective, from what I share, but I see so many Christians being impacted more by the world and the circumstances around them (us) than I see Christians impacting the world. Yes, there are those who have powerful lives and powerful ministries, and I read about them in articles and on the web - but I rarely met or interact with any of them. What I see is people who seem to live by feelings and who have good days, then have bad days, and can also have "so so" days.

So much of what I see is a repeat, or a variation of a theme that I saw in the 1970's with the Charismatic movement. (I was saved in this period and have a lot of wonderful memories and experiences from this time, but there were some lifestyle issues, of which I will discuss.) Many of us in this movement loved Jesus, we loved the presence of God, we loved to worship and to be expressive, we loved to share about Jesus, and we especially loved to have people join in and also have their experience. We had some wild times and experienced some pretty wonderful and crazy things. I still enjoy wonderful and crazy experiences, but there is more to faith than what you experience or what you feel.

During the times of the Charismatic Movement people who run from experience to experience, from meeting to meeting, and often live for the experience. There are some who are very critical of this "meeting hopping" and "experience living" faith - that is not where I am going with this. I love my experiences and I love the passion and the fun and the touches of heaven on earth we all had. I think more people need this passion, more need to understand the wild and alive side of faith, but we need to see there is more. My point is that our faith should not be solely built on the foundation of experience; rather it needs to be solidly built on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ and His word.

Let me now get back to these days. I see a lot of the same things today that I saw in the 70's, and more. Now we do not just have conferences and meetings to attend, there is now the whole experience of the internet. You can read and review almost anything, and you can now experience things on line with emails, pdfs, blogs, chat sessions, and pod casts, etc - it is fantastic and it is rich. I do a lot of this, I love what I can find and read and experience. In fact I am enjoy blog writing and emails.

However, in all of this, we need to know what our faith is based on and what our foundation is. I see so many people who have put so much time into reading and experiencing what others do, that they don't have much to their own faith. Yes, we need teachers and need each other to have input into our lives, but we each need to have our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ that is the core and the foundation of our lives. If we only live on the easy things that others provide, we are missing out on our relationship with Jesus.

I am not advocating being islands or being out on your own. What I am saying is that we need to start, each of us, with our own relationship with Jesus - and we build from that. If all we do is the easy things that we can get from others, we don't learn to be strong and we can wind up being tossed to and fro by circumstances because we are not centered and founded on our own relationship with Jesus.

If you live only for feelings and for experience, you will have a roller coaster (up and down) experience that will be fun and exhilarating, but also full of fear and apprehension and doubt.

I wish that more people today looked at their relationship with Jesus as they do their credit cards. What do I mean by this? Well, some people (and the financial statistics prove this out) live and spend like there is no limit to their income, and with an apparent mentality that they will not need to pay the money back. I am amazed by how many people are so free in the use of their credit, because they always use it. When one account, one card reaches its limit, then they start using another card. Or they use multiple cards and accounts, and never quite reach the limit on any of them.

The point here is not the alarming financial irresponsibility but the level of faith that people have in credit, and the amazing ability to keep spending and spending and spending.

Back to my wish - what if people today treated their relationship with Jesus like their credit cards. Not from the negative perspective of "using God for their own pleasure" but rather had the faith to see the unlimited resources available in Christ. He has it all; there is no limit to God. We can't pray more than God can answer. We can't believe for something that is too big for God to do.

I believe that we have barely scratched surface of the depths of God (or the majority of us, because there are those who really are deep and mature) and that we can experience a fuller and richer life in Christ. I believe that we can live in Christ and be strong in Christ so that we will not be tossed to and fro by circumstances. I believe we can rise above the daily stress of life and touch God in a way that can change our lives and change the world.

I will continue these thoughts in my next note.