Faith Matters | With God’s grace, Christians don’t have to live life the hard way

Sometimes, for no reason, we choose to do things the hard way.

I have a friend who chooses to use chopsticks when we go to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. It has to be the hardest way to eat rice ever invented. I wonder, as I watch him, if he’s ever seen someone using a shovel and thought maybe a fork or spoon would be easier. It just seems unnecessarily hard. It’s good to do hard things, but I wonder if sometimes we unnecessarily choose the harder way.

I think this happens in a Christians life all the time.

As Christians we have this incredible resource within us that often times goes ignored. We live as if we have to overcome all our issues and struggles by ourselves. This is why so many Christians struggle with the same issues today that they struggled with last year and a few years ago. This is why many Christians can’t ever seem to get control over their temper, stop smoking, drinking, looking at porn, etc. They know they’re a Christian but past that, nothing else has happened. They’ve tried stopping a particular sin, but time and again they keep giving into the same temptations. They consistently act like they have to do it on their own. They keep choosing the hard way.

What Christians seem to forget is the same powerful grace that saved us is the same powerful grace that works through us to change us. God didn’t give us grace only to save our soul.

This is exactly what the Apostle Paul is trying to explain to the small church in the city of Colossae. He tells them in Colossians 1:27 that “… Christ is in you the hope of glory.” Building on this truth, he then tells them in verse 28 that this powerful gift within them can make them “mature.” And he concludes his thought by explaining in verse 29 that “He powerfully works within me.” Paul clearly sees he doesn’t have to do life the hard way. The Holy Spirit of Christ dwells within and enables him to overcome those things he wants to leave behind.

Unfortunately, we often don’t live this way.

It’s like someone gives you the keys to a new car. You take pictures of your new car. You wash your new car. You your wax your new car. You tell the story about the day you found the new car in your driveway. But, oddly enough, you don’t drive your new car. It just sits there. The person who gave you the new car gave it so you would drive it. Christian, when Jesus saved you from your sins, He didn’t intend for that to be the end. He didn’t intend for that to be the only story you told about your faith. He intended for you to use the new power residing within you to move forward, to overcome sin, and to find lasting joy.

He never intended for you to do life the hard way.

Faith Matters is written by members of the Bradenton area clerical community. Phillip Hamm is senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Palmetto.