Born and Living With Christ

Born and Living With Christ

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come! (NIV)

When you accept Christ, when you decide you want to be with Him and have Him in your life, He immediately accepts you as well because He has already accepted you and decided that He wants you to be with Him as well.
So many people want a clean slate, a new beginning, a chance to start over. Christ gives you that fresh start when you ask Him to be with you and truely mean it. Now, it may not be in the immediate physical sense, but in the spiritual reality, it happens faster than you can blink, faster than your brain can send signals to your heart to tell it to beat, faster than you and i can even comprehend. Your sin is removed and you become entirely new. You become stronger. You become my brother or sister in Christ and most importantly, you become a child of God.


Romans 8:12-15
Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation-but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit [Christ] you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

John 15:1-14
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up , thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.


Ok, so you've done it. You've accepted Christ. You're feeling good, the pastor and church is proud of you. Jesus is proud of you. And God is proud of you. You've inherited the blessings of being a child of God.
But remember. This is a relationship. A living, constant, loving relationship. You cant just ask a girl out that you really like and not talk to her or spend time with her for 3 months and then call her and expect everything to be ok. You have to commit to the relationship, sacrifice some things, make an honest, earnest effort to make that relationship all that it can be.
So how do you do this? You follow his words, his teachings, his life. Many people in leadership positions operate under the idea of "Do as i say, not as I do". God is not like that at all. In fact I'd be willing to bet you that if you asked God how He would live if He was a human, He would point to Jesus and say "Exactly like my son." And this is how Jesus lived. In love. In love with you, in love with me, in love with my great great great grandchild, in love with his Father.

So study his life and his teachings. Study how he acts and study the laws and guidelines his Father sets out for us in both the Old and New Testaments. You have been born into Christ, now its time to start living with Him.
 
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