Are you 'Like a Christian?" in His Word 4-10-17

Are you ‘Like’ a Christian? In His Word- 4-10-17

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

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Since we are no longer our own, due to the fact we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior and decided to follow His will in our lives; we have in a sense taken on a new life and begun walking with Him.
Just the point of accepting or believing in Jesus is where the change begins; but does it stop there in your life? Have you gone anywhere, done anything that was not out of selfish gain, but for Christ Jesus glory?

I think from time to time we need to revisit our ‘day of salvation’ and remind ourselves that it is not about us, this life we live through faith in Christ; it is about Him. 

Everything we suffer through, everything we gain, it is all for Jesus sake. We have heard it preached that we are grafted into the family of God himself, did you realize that? We are adopted into Christ’s family which means God, our Father God, and Jesus the son, our brother God and us we are one in Christ.  Wow, that is a lot to think on, take a look at this scripture and take a Selah moment on that one.

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. ⁸ But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8

If we are living for Christ then we should really act like Him.

How do we do this? How do we really behave like a Christian? A real one, not a fake one like we see on the television or in movies; how can I be the person God wants me to be?

Start with Love, we know that God is love; we should love like ‘Love’

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.  Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:1-3

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Don’t be a fake! Be real and really love others the same way He loves us; with the Holy Spirit in us we can do this! We can be real with them and love even the people who ‘rub us the wrong way’ with God’s help.

We just need to make the decision to allow Him to love them through us, to think like Jesus.

 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.  Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.  Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. Romans 12:9-12

Loving one another means we are working to help one another, encourage one another and rejoice with them; walk like a Christian, be like Jesus. We can only do this because we believe in Jesus, and because we believe in Him as our Lord God we can know that He will help us love those whom the unlovable to us. Not that there should be anyone whom we cannot love but sometimes we as people get set in our ways and find it hard to reach out to a person who annoys us. For whatever reason it is, it is not Christ like to think this as Christ would love them anyway.

 Real love- casts out fear, gives up its desires for another, lives its life for another, shares what it has, encourages, honors, desires to spend time with, works along side of one another. Look into God’s attributes and you will see what God’s love really is.

 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.  If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? 1 John 3:16-17

If we really want to be a Christian, to walk the walk and talk the talk, we need to love one another. A young adult once told me that the fullness of Christ’s message and being a Christ following Christian is to love on people; cause when you give them love then you are giving Jesus to them. Cause God is love.

Let’s love on someone this week, and all the weeks after but this week focus on loving one another and putting others needs before our own.

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to walk like Jesus and share the love You embody. Thank you for Your love that you gave to us to share, help us to do so today and every day, in Jesus name, amen

Suggested reading; 1John 4:1-21, 1 John 3:1-24, Romans 12:1-21 Galatians 2:1-21.