What is it about my life that people want to have?

Do people want a life that is focussed around abstaining from certain things, practicing certain other things and thriving to be the best I can be with Christ's help? On the face of it you would disagree that this is what many of our Christian lives are like. Yet we can often find ourselves blindly pointing to the bible to support abstaining from alcohol or from premarital sex or profanities without also considering the practical realities behind these issues. We then go on to apply blanket rules to our lives and the lives of those around us either directly or indirectly through our attitudes and reactions. We think that by upholding Christian standards and by living as a Christian people will see something in our life that is different to theirs and ask us about it. Yet I know I live a life that is often typified by restraint where I still live as a slave to my old sinful nature that looks no different to the people I am trying to impact.

I think people desire after something in their lives that frees them from the state of sin they live in and gives them hope that there is something more than just living for today and that there is something out there after they die. People know that the wool is being pulled over their eyes but they don’t know who is deceiving them or why. People that I come across cry out for justice and desire real relationships with people. They want to meet people in their life who are willing to be vulnerable with them, to admit their flaws so that they themselves can be open about their own shortfalls. Yet what I seem to offer them is a relationship with God that is guilt plagued and restrictive. A relationship with a God that I confine to being somewhat of a Father Christmas type or a general who gives me specific orders and yet gives me anything I need and ask for 'as long as it is in his will'. A God who is definable down to a set of doctrines which if one is pulled away, the whole house will come crashing down.

My doctrines about God seem to constrict him (at least in my mind) and restrict those not 'part of the faith' from entering rather than being recognised as things which were written by someone as an understanding of God. Things like the trinity are touted as irrefutable truths yet it is a term never directly mentioned in the bible. I am not setting out to disagree with the core doctrines of Christianity as they stand because at this point in time they appear to be the best way of explaining God and the gospel, two concepts that in the scheme of things I profess to know little about. If in the future a supposedly better way of explaining God was to be found then I would seriously consider it, weight it up against the Bible and then potentially change my point of view accordingly.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am asking questions about my life and about the church and what people who aren’t already Christians think about these two things. I look at my life and see what I thought were well thought out doctrines and principles weren’t really that well thought out after all. The reasons behind my actions often seem to come out of my relatively conservative upbringing rather than out of an understanding of who I am in Christ and how he has made me. I am struggling with what it means to be a man after Gods own heart and to gain an understanding of just what it means to be a friend of a God who is awesome and powerful and who knows me intimately before I even speak to him. A God who created the amazing universe we live in and each of us for the sole purpose of giving him glory.

I want to understand and know in my heart what it is to have freedom in Christ and live my life from that position. I would love to live a life that is relevant to people yet is distinctive so that through my words and actions they will see something different, hope.

I would love it if all people could understand that despite the seeming hopelessness that they see everyday that all is not lost and that this world, no matter how corrupt or unjust it may seem, will not be destroyed but instead that it will be restored by Christ when he returns.

I want to give wholeheartedly to my local church and to those in need, both in my neighbourhood and in the rest of the world. Yet it seems that no matter how much money or time I give unless people have a relationship with Christ they will still be separated from God when they die and that above all else is what breaks my heart. This is something that I pray I will remain focussed on my whole life.

I commit to the two greatest commandments: To love God and to love people, no matter what, and to desiring to live a life that is marked by freedom and true joy.

I invite you to join me.