Are You Living "A" Life Or "THE" Life? - Part One

    I feel it is important to ask this question because most Christians have been either living “A” life or have been living “THE” life. Let me explain the difference.

       I lived “A” life for the first thirty years of my Christian life. I simply define “A” life as what I taught that I needed to do with God’s help to live the Christian life and to be pleasing and acceptable to God and others. Let me give you some examples of what I was taught:

1.  I was told to take what I learn from the Bible and go out and try to accomplish what it says.

2. I was taught that I need to try to stop sinning.

3. I was taught to try and keep God’s commands.

4. It was up to me with God’s help to try and change myself.

5. I needed to try to become more righteous. 

6. I needed to try harder to transform my fleshly behavior into godly behavior.

    I hope you picked up on the word “try” because that is what I was doing. The problem is that my trying did not lead to accomplishing any of the above. In fact, my trying led to continual failure. I tried to do everything I was taught to do but it never led to the victory, freedom or transformation that God promises. Needless to say, if you keep trying and nothing happens, the tendency is to give up. And that is exactly what I did. I tried and I tried but nothing changed in my life. In fact, it got worse. What was I doing wrong? Was there something missing in my understanding of the Christian life?

    How about you? Are you experiencing ongoing victory, freedom, and transformation? If not, is it possible that you have been living “A” life like I did for 30 years? The problem with living “A” life is that I was the source with God’s help to try and make my life work and it was not working. Is it possible that I was believing a lie? Let’s look at the definition of “THE” life for the answer.

     Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and THE LIFE.” Interesting that Jesus does not say I am “A” life but rather He says I am “THE” Life. Let me ask you a  question. How many people have lived THE Life? If you answered one, you are right. Christ is the only person to have lived THE Life. If that is true, then how can you and I live THE Life? We find the answer in Galatians 2:20 when Paul says: “I no longer live but Christ (THE LIFE) lives in me.” (Parenthesis mine) Paul is saying that he can’t live THE life. Rather, he is allowing Christ to live His life in Paul. Why did Paul say this?

    We see the answer in 1 Corinthians 1:30 “He (Christ) is the SOURCE of your life in Christ Jesus…” (Parenthesis mine). If Christ is the source for living the Christian life, does that mean that I am NOT to be the source? The answer is “yes.” There is only One person who can be the source to live the Christian life and that is Christ. Therefore, we, like Paul can’t live THE life, so we too, must allow Christ to live His life in us. In Part Two, we will talk about what it means for Christ to live His life in us.

Click here to listen to the Audio Version
Blog Audio Version



At Christ Is Life Ministries it is our goal to provide resources to encourage you in your walk with Christ. Visit the other Discipleship Tools throughout our site.

Click here to see videos about Discipleship
Video Discipleship Series

Click here to listen to other Audio Resources
Audio Discipleship Resources

Click here for Discipleship Resources
Discipleship Resources

Click here for Christ Is Life Ministries Discipleship Tools and to download Curriculums
CILM Discipleship Tools

"Do You Ever Feel Like Giving Up?"

"Therefore, since God in His mercy has given us this NEW way, we NEVER give up." 2 Corinthians 4:1 (NLT)

You may be at that place today where you feel like giving up on God or giving up on the Christian life. If you are not at that place today, have you ever had thoughts before like these: "When is God going to come through?";"Why hasn't He done something to deliver me from this situation or relationship?"; "How long am I going to suffer or be in this conflict?" If we are honest with ourselves, we can all admit to having thoughts like these at some point. We may have never overtly said "I am going to give up on God or give up on my Christian life",  but I wonder if  we don't subtly or covertly say this through our thoughts and actions.

There are times that we, especially in times of great pain and/or disillusionment, feel like giving up. However, what does God say in the passage above?: Since He "has given us this new way" we never give up. I don't know about you but the word NEVER jumps out of this verse at me. How can Paul be so adamant about "never" giving up?

To answer this question, we need to first look at what Paul means by the "new way." Is it possible that Paul is talking about Jesus being the "new way?" After all, Jesus Himself in John 14:6 says He is THE WAY. If this is what Paul is referring to, the next question is: "Do we understand what it means to live from "this new way?"  I suspect that many of you reading this do understand but for those of you who may not, here, in part, is what it means:

1.Living in total dependence on Christ as a branch depends on the vine.  (John 15:5)

2.Living from the fullness of God's life and power in us to be transformed into Christ-likeness. (1 John 5:12; Ephesians 3:19; Ephesians 1:19, 20; 2 Corinthians 3:18)

3.Experiencing freedom and victory, and being healed from past woundedness.  (Galatians 5:1; 1 Corinthians 15:57; Psalm 147:3)

4.Believing and living out of your true identity in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Now that we understand, at least in part, the new way, let's go back to our question: Why is Paul so adamant about "never" giving up?

One reason is, that if you give up on God or give up living from the new way where does that leave you? It leaves you going back to yourself as the source to live life.  It leaves you going back to using your finite intellect and ability to try and resolve your impossible problems or to try and produce a satisfying marriage or to try to  find joy and fulfillment outside of Christ.  If that is where you are today, how is that working for you?

Secondly, and more importantly, Paul is saying that if you walk long enough in dependence on Christ as the The (new) Way, you won't give up because you know that to go back to self as the source is not an option. You have experienced enough "death of self" that to go back to self is just more "death."

The truth is that we never can give up because there is NO other option than God. Because there is no other way but THE WAY. Because to go back to ourselves as the source will only result in more misery, more conflict and more of the same.

Therefore, my encouragement to you is that if today (or tomorrow) you feel like giving up on God, take another step of faith and continue living dependent on Christ as "the (new) way." Why? Because each step of faith will be used by the Spirit to further persuade you that God will do what He promises to do to transform your life and  that giving up on Him is really not an option.