It’s not difficult to become a Christian. God offers His grace to anyone who wants it. But becoming a Christian has enormous consequences. Someone who believes in Jesus Christ is freed from the power of sin and receives a whole new life (see Romans 6:4). They see the world with new eyes. They live for God in the power of the Holy Spirit. And this affects all areas of life.
Love as a way of life
A Christian lives from the love of God. This is the foundation of his life. One of the first followers of Jesus wrote about it: “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16)
That love of God evokes a response: “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) If you love God so much, you will want to thank and honour Him in everything you do. A popular hymn expresses this as follows: “Take my life, and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to Thee”.
Going one step further, God’s love also plants seeds of love for others in our hearts. About this, John says: “whoever loves God must also love his brother.” ( 1 John 4:21, and also 1 John 5:1) In this John is in complete agreement with the words of God Himself, which Jesus also brought to our attention. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27, compare this with Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 10:12; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; James 2:8). Or, to quote the so-called ‘golden rule’: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12).
On the one hand, God’s will for our lives is very simple, you could summarise it in two sentences, but, on the other hand, this command is so comprehensive that it shapes your entire life.
Opposition
If love for God and others is the foundation of your life, then there’s really no need for further guidance. Then you will automatically do what God wants you to do (see Galatians 5:14). Unfortunately, this is not how it works in practice. Even though we are Christians and God’s Spirit lives in us, there are still remnants of sin in us. Our hearts are not yet fully cleansed and healed. This sometimes makes it difficult for us to discern God’s will in a particular situation, and even more difficult to do the right thing. To make matters worse, the people around us do not always live in a loving and just way either. In fact, when you try to follow God’s instructions, you often meet resistance from those around you. God’s will often clashes with other views and desires – our own and those around us. It is not without reason that Jesus uses such strong words: “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24)
At the same time, Jesus also says: “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) That is also the experience of believers, precisely because they love God so much. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3) The problem is not God’s will, but the opposition of sin, both in our hearts and in the broken world we live in.
Practical implications
The Bible does not give a detailed list of rules for every situation in life. Guided by the Holy Spirit, you can discover for yourself how to honour God in every area of your life. There are, however, various pointers to guide you. A very useful summary is, for example, the Ten Commandments that God gave to Israel as a constitution for their society. You can find them in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. The New Testament also contains all kinds of commands for believers, for example in Romans 12:9-21 or 1 Peter 4:7-11. The way these instructions are put into practice will vary from person to person, situation to situation and culture to culture.
On this website we try to help you find the right direction in your life — a life with God — by outlining the Bible’s basic principles on various topics such as ‘money and possessions’, ‘relationships’ or ‘marriage and sexuality’.
You are not alone
If you take a critical look at your own life, or if you are faced with all kinds of difficulties, you may feel discouraged. Being a Christian is not always easy! So I would like to end this article with some encouragement. You don’t have to do it alone! You can seek support from fellow believers who are often facing the same challenges as you. It can be very encouraging to share this with each other, to help each other practically and to pray for each other. But the most important help comes from God Himself. He is “the God of perseverance and encouragement” and “the God of hope” (Romans 15:5; 15:13). He wants to fill you “with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13).