What does that even mean? Do you have any understanding? OK… admittedly, this is undoubtedly an individual definition, but the concept – Practicing Christian – do you have your definition? Let me provide mine so you have a context.
Being a Christian is meant to permeate all of who we are, everything and everyone we touch in the course of our day. It is not, never, a separate ‘part’ of you that you bring out and dust off… ‘when company comes’. Christianity isn’t just for Sunday morning.
This is my definition… but most important, what’s yours? How do you define and confirm who you are as a Christian? Do you even see it’s importance?
Christianity is not meant to be only a philosophy, an intellectual ‘exercise’. When you look at the life of Jesus, you begin to catch a glimpse of who He is and what He considers important. How He lived and what He did gives us examples and understandings of how we should live. His was a life lived with His ‘boots on’. Plus I also believe that we all seek an example, a model to adapt in our lives to underscore how we should be.
When we accept Jesus as our Lord, become saved, we have just signed up to be part of the army of God. He doesn’t take this lightly and neither should we. He tells us what we need to do, equips and trains us to do this… but… this is OUR choice, a decision we choose. However, never forget the sobering admonition given in Revelations to the church at Laodica (3:16). Our lives are to be full, fruitful and meaningful.
Honestly, I think that this forms the basis for my third book in this third series, ‘The Search’. I believe we all need to define how we apply and become Practicing Christian, how this looks in our lives. How we demonstrate, automatically, how we apply Christianity to life. And, as is true with most of the important issues of our lives, this is a process. As we take the necessary steps to activate our own definition of being a Practicing Christian, then we grow and confirm who we are.
