Conformity.
What kind of images come to mind for you
with the word “conformity”?
Skinny jeans that you can never quite fit into? 🙂
Rules to follow?
Strict behavior?
Never measuring up?
Religious performances?
Giving up control of yourself?
Unending list of “must-do’s” followed by unending feelings of guilt?
Christianity?
Sometimes it can be easy to lose sight of what true Christianity is….or maybe we never had a genuine perspective in the first place.
What does it mean to you to be a Christian?
Following Christ? Obeying Him? Becoming more like Christ? Becoming conformed to Him?
All of these are quite true and very biblical when taken from the perspective that they were intended, which means giving just as much weight to the other biblical descriptions of Christianity and grasping the “big picture” of the truth and beauty of the Gospel.
My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Whom the Son has set free is free indeed.
Sure, good Christians all know that the above statements are true. That Christ has set us free, and that He loves us and always will, and that somehow His “yoke and burden” are “easy and light.” But what do we usually feel like in the day-to-day of Christian living?
How do you feel about the Christian life?
Burdened? Heavy? Guilty?
From countless conversations with others, and by taking a good, long look at my own heart and life, I’ve concluded that for many, if not most, Christianity eventually becomes a very long set of rules that we feel obligated to abide by because, after all, Christ did die for our sins.
What if Christianity wasn’t a long list of rules? What if it was more than strict obedience? Or better yet, what if our definition of “obedience” was colored by unending love and beautiful grace? What if we stopped trying to follow Christ on our own will-power and instead chose to put our energies into simply listening to and following the promptings of the Holy Spirit instead of “mustering up enough good works” on our own strength?
What are your thoughts on this topic? How do you wrestle with the process of becoming like Christ? Or maybe you’ve never considered it before. Check back in over the next few days as we continue our look into the area of sanctification and how it can change the way we live for Christ.