A Little Look Into the Christian Life

What does it mean to be a Christian? Among other things, a Christian is quite simply a follower of Jesus Christ—one who submits to Him as Lord and Savior, who joyfully puts themselves under the yoke of obedience to Him and His word.

Just as those who were subjects of Herod in the first century were called “Herodians,” those belonging to Christ were labeled as “Christians.” In Acts 11:26, we read how “in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.” Whether the moniker of “Christian” began as a convenient label from outsiders or as a derogatory term—“mini-Christs”—meant to mock believers, one thing is certain: the name stuck.

To be a Christian is to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. This involves the recognition on your part that He is Lord and that you are not; that He is Savior and that you are woefully unable to save yourself from the wrath of God. Flowing from these twin recognitions is repentance; you turn from your sinful ways to Him, casting from yourself the very notion that you are able to be righteous before God on your own, trusting rather in the finished work of Jesus Christ on your behalf.

When we place our faith in the work of Christ—His sinless, obedient life before the Father, His atoning and substitutionary death on the cross for sins, and His glorious, bodily resurrection as vindication of God’s satisfaction in His Son’s sacrifice for sinners—we become justified before the sight of God. That is, we become righteous even as Christ Himself is righteous—“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross, Jesus bore our sins; when we respond to the Gospel in repentance and faith, Christ’s righteousness is put on us even as our sins—past, present, and future—were put on Him.

We are made right with God by His grace through the gift of faith; this is not of ourselves, lest we should find any reason for boasting. It is by faith, as the Spirit works in our hearts, that we enter into union with the Lord. As one theologian put it, “Faith is the hand of the soul by which we receive Christ and become one with Him.”

To be a Christian is to be one with Christ; to be united to Him through faith.

Once the Christian is justified by the work of Christ, then begins the work of their being made like Christ. This is called sanctification, the process by which we as believers are made holy even as Christ is holy. This is the very end unto which we were all saved: “For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). All of the Christian life—that which resides within the very nucleus of what it means to be a Christian—is the God-glorifying, Spirit-filled, Christ-honoring work of our being made holy from one degree of glory to another after the image and pattern of Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Philippians 2:13, Paul says that believers must “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Paul is not saying that we are to save ourselves when he writes about working out our salvation—only God can do that. Rather, he is instructing believers to, quite literally, “work out” that which God has already completed in them through His Spirit. In a very real sense, sanctification is just that: our day-to-day working out of the reality which God has sovereignly worked in us. We are literally working out our salvation; outwardly etching into time and space with our good works that which God has sovereignly accomplished in us, in our very hearts.

Unlike justification, which God accomplishes on His own, sanctification is a work that we as believers partake in alongside Him—God is not going to live our Christian life for us. Though, at the same time, we are feckless in our attempts to be holy apart from Him. Indeed, we are co-laborers with God in sanctification, ever relying on the help of His Spirit as we seek to walk in obedience to His word.

Two of the chief ways in which we grow in Christlikeness is to spend much time in His word and much time in His presence through prayer. These two go hand in hand as we, in anticipating God’s manifold blessings from the word, first seek His help through prayer, then read, praying throughout and afterwards that His truth would trickle down to the deepest depths of our hearts and there bear fruit—that is, to “work out.”

We might, for example, read Paul’s words in Galatians 5:22-23 about the fruit of the Spirit—“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law”—and rightly conclude that we are desperately lacking in patience. Prodded gently by the Spirit, we then respond with prayer: “Heavenly Father, it is my utmost desire to be more and more like your Son, the Lord Jesus, who was and is the very height of patience. I admit that I lack patience in many corners of my life. Lord, forgive me for how I have fallen short in this way, and grant me grace and strength that I may grow in Christlike patience in every circumstance with those around me.”

Then, if you’re anything like me, you very well might expect a great wellspring of patience to begin foaming up within you. Only, that is rarely, if ever, how God works out Christlikeness in us. When we pray for greater Christlikeness, be it increased faith or patience or otherwise, God doesn’t simply drop faith or patience into our lap—rather, He tends to drop us into situations that demand greater faith or patience from us.

And often, much to our initial and at times ongoing displeasure, these situations are marked by suffering. We see this patterned many times throughout Scripture. In James 1:2-4, for example, we read:

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

When we pray for holiness, it ought not surprise us that God should toss us into the furnace of testing and trial wherein we can then be purified (1 Peter 1:6-7, Romans 5:3-5). What better way for God to increase our faith than to withdraw our sight for a time; what better way for us to grow in patience than to be thrust into a season of waiting; what better way for us to become more like Christ than to have all unrighteousness purged from us through the testing of faith that comes from the hands of a loving Father, albeit in the furnace of suffering for a time.

It seems a lifetime ago that I read through John Calvin’s short work, A Little Book on the Christian Life. Translated and edited by Aaron Clay Denlinger and Burk Parsons, this little book is a relatively self-contained, practical section on the Christian life drawn from Calvin’s labyrinthian magnum opus, Institutes of the Christian Religion. About halfway through the chapter titled “Bearing Our Cross Is a Part of Self-Denial,” I read these words:

“Another reason the Lord afflicts His people is to test their endurance and to train them in obedience. They are quite unable to produce obedience unless He Himself empowers them. But it pleases Him to illuminate and testify by clear proofs to those graces that He has bestowed on the saints, so that those graces don’t lie hidden and idle. In Scripture, therefore, God is said to test His servants’ endurance when He puts on display that strength and constancy in suffering which He has given to them.”

I remember retreating to another room upon reading these words, trembling, so as to be alone. I was a relatively new Christian, but I had already sensed a sort of complacency about myself that weighed on my heart. In the stillness of that moment, I quite vividly recall myself coming before the Lord in prayer, asking to be made more like Christ—to know Him and love Him with a fervor greater than any I could possibly muster on my own, no matter the cost.

A few hours later, I found myself in a hospital room. Sitting quietly, I listened as my father broke the news that he had stage 4 liver cancer. His words, as well as others, were swirling about my mind like a tempest—“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

Folks will often say, “Come to Jesus and He will take all your troubles away!”—I’ve found the opposite to be the case. Indeed, my life before Christ was relatively easy and carefree in most respects. And when I became a Christian, Christ did in fact take away that which formed the raw substance of my troubles: namely, the sin and impending judgement thereof that put me at infinite odds with Him. Looking back, it was only after I submitted to Christ that I found peace; and, somewhat unexpectedly, this was when the real battle truly began. As our Lord said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

That evening in the hospital room was to be the beginning of my enrollment in the school of learning Christ.

We’ve all heard the age-old question—“If God is loving and all-powerful, then why in the world does He allow for suffering to exist?” One needn’t be a linguist to pick up on the scathing accusation layered within these words. Indeed, it is less a question at all and more of a rebuke directed towards almighty God. “Why God? Why!” the crowds exclaim. “Why do children suffer and die before their time? Why are the very best taken in a flash, while the most vile are left to prosper? Why does suffering run rampant, with no end in sight?”

As Christians, we must allow for two seemingly contrary realities, both of which are affirmed by the Bible in no uncertain terms: the first being that God is utterly sovereign, and that evil, utterly real evil, exists in this world. There is tension here—but not irreconcilable tension. Alongside Paul, we rejoice in the knowledge that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Much of the time we do not and cannot see how all things are being worked out for our good and God’s glory, but we must take it on faith that nothing escapes our Father’s care. This is why Paul, only a few verses earlier in Romans 8:18, can say with unabashed confidence that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Before he even has opportunity to pull out his abacus and do some calculations, Paul determines that any present suffering experienced in this life by believers is not to be compared with the glory to come in Christ.

Suffering is real and devastating for the believer and unbeliever alike. For the believer, however, suffering is neither negated nor outright dismissed. There is no wasted suffering. In the hands of a sovereign, loving Father, how can there be? Because God is actively working out all things for our good, unequivocally, suffering is not only made bearable in light of the promise of that which is to come, as Paul says, but it is redeemed.

As Christians, we should all want to be sanctified into the image of Christ. However, by contrast, which of us actively desire the intrusion of suffering into our lives? Everyone wants sanctification; no one wants suffering. God, in His love, gives both. In His matchless wisdom, power, and love, God so often grants suffering, with sanctification swift upon its heels, in order to achieve our highest good for His highest glory.

No matter how great the trials we find ourselves in, we can rest in the knowledge that our suffering is not only being worked out for good, as though haphazardly along the way, but that all our suffering is sovereignly ordained and being worked out by God for our highest good—so much so that it is indeed far better in the mind of God that we should suffer temporarily in light of eternity, than that such trouble should never have occurred at all. Such is the love and power and wisdom of God towards all those whom He has chosen in Christ.

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Photo by Dibya Jyoti Ghosh, Unsplash

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