The Christian Life
A common misconception amongst people today is that Christianity is instantaneous. It is a switch that is suddenly turned on and you find yourself fully and completely “Christian”. Then there are those in society that believe Christians are brainwashed. That somehow this cult took hold within humanity and has persisted for more than two-thousand years and has entrapped generation after generation after generation.
But this is not true. Christianity is not instantaneous, Salvation is instantaneous. Christianity is a lifetime lived.
There are people sitting in Church pews all over the world that are not Christians. People that have never believed in their heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died for their sins and rose from the dead and sits in Heaven today interceding for them. People that have never experienced Salvation, and have thus never started the lifelong journey of Christianity. And yet these people still sit in the Church pews and find truth in the values preached and attempt to put those values and truths into practice in their own lives. All while never personally and intimately knowing the God who is the author of those truths.
And on the other side of the coin there are those people that believe with all their heart, and all their mind, and all their soul that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He died for their sins, that He rose from the dead, and that He sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven and intercedes for them today. They have experienced Salvation. But they are not in the Church pews. They are not even in a local home Bible study. They are sitting at home neither growing or learning or maturing. They are not practicing Christianity despite having experienced Salvation.
Christianity begins after Salvation has given birth to a new spiritual life in a person, and that new life is every bit life a new born baby. It must be nurtured and cared for. It must be protected and taught as it grows. And just like any other newborn life, it is subject to rebellion, the development of its own ideas, and even to make new discoveries unknown to those who teach and preach.
A pastor can spend a lifetime in the pulpit, an entire career, and never even begin to cover all the education required for Christianity. And those practicing Christianity in the pews will be at all different stages in their Christian lives. There will be babies, and preschoolers, and children, and teenagers, and even adults. There will be those who are old and wise, and those who are just old.
But there never has been, nor will there ever be, those who have completed Christianity sitting in those pews. Christianity is a lifelong growth and maturing of a spiritual life born out of Salvation that started with the work of The Holy Spirit of God in that person’s life. And there will always be those that learn much over their lifetimes, and those that learn little. Either way, you never complete your studies in Christianity and you never achieve a PhD in Christianity. There is always more to learn.
The Greatest Pleas Ever Made is 22 pleas to God distilled into outcomes that resulted in Christian maturity. Life practices that are part of the Christian journey. Christianity expressed by those that lived it. Pleas that led to Christians practicing Christianity and growing their own spiritual lives. 22 lessons of Christianity that you can put into your curricula of lessons to be studied within your own spiritual journey.