I’ve been a Christian for many years now, and I’ve been to church for almost my whole life, but I’ve never been challenged by Christianity until this past year. I went to Campus Challenge 2009 this past weekend. The theme for the weekend was “Transformation” and the passage used was the Sermon of the Mount (Matt 5-7). The more specific theme passage would be Matthew 5:13-16, about being the salt and light of the world:
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
That passage for me has always been significant. It’s really what being a Christian in this world is. Being a disciple, a follower of Christ, it is natural that we are different. We are the light in this world full of darkness, and as salt, we are called to be “mixed” in with the rest of the world, giving “flavour” and not just mingle around with other “salt”.
One of the topics (if not the main topic) that came up this weekend was righteousness (after all, we were studying the Sermon on the Mount). Righteousness. Holiness. Perfection. Just looking at the Sermon of the Mount, God has a high standard of righteousness for us. Going in to Campus Challenge this Saturday, I was on a spiritual low. I felt like I was doing nothing with my life; wasting it. I was seeing yet again the depths of my own sin, and just seeing how wretched I was. So when I saw the call to righteousness that Jesus is calling us to in the Sermon of the Mount, it really made me wonder and just praise God for His grace. I knew that I was deserving of His wrath. Yet God is able to forgive me and I know that He has a plan for me despite all the wrong I’ve done. That He could work and make something good happen from my brokenness, from my sin. He came down and shed His blood for us. He did everything for us. He loved us with a love we can’t even fathom. It just makes me amazed...Amazed that He would come down from heaven’s heights to greet us, to die for us, when we are just SO sinful. What does God feel when He looks down from His throne in heaven and sees us living life the way we live it? What does He think when He sees us sin time and time again? Isn’t He frustrated when He keeps trying to bring us to Him, but we turn away from Him? Isn’t He angry, seeing all the darkness in the world? He is, but the amazing thing is that I also know that He looks on us from heaven, and loves us. He sees what we are going through, and wants to be a part of it, He wants to suffer with us, to laugh with us, to cry with us, and He wants us to come into His arms.
How can we thank our Father for what He has done for us. We can’t even come close to repaying Him, but we can give our lives to Him. All the more reason to do everything we can to strive for righteousness. The essence of Christianity in a way, is to continually strive to be like Christ, to always persevere for holiness. I find lots of times, as Christians, we are prone to settling with what we have already. But being a disciple of Christ, we are to continually, always strive for more. There is more. We can always be better, we can always strive for perfection, just as Christ is perfect. We can always strive to have closer communion with our God, a closer relationship with the Holy Spirit. We can always be more filled with His Spirit, always capable of being more used by the Spirit. We can always love God more, love people more. And we can’t lose the motivation to persevere for more. We cannot settle. We cannot let ourselves be satisfied with where we are. We have to want more, be more. We need to want to be the light and salt of the world.
Being Christians, we’ve made a commitment to have a relationship with our God. Just like any relationship, commitment is so important. We need to be constantly committed to Him, committed to serve Him, to be like Him, to love Him.
That is the challenge. To never settle. To want with all your heart to become closer with God at all times, in all circumstances. If you lack motivation, we have to pray for it and look at what God has done for us. And find something to drive you to want more.
I think all of us know this, but sometimes we just don't want to enough. Or we are satisfied with our relationship with God and we don't strive hard enough. This is going off topic, but the issue even goes with our friends. All relationships require commitment. But lots of times, we either don't have time, or we don't put enough effort to connect with all our friends. We don't try to get to know them hard enough, or we don't put enough commitment into the relationship. Of course, sometimes it's just hard to balance all our friendships and to have commitment in all of them. But we can't not commit to our relationship with Christ, and we have to make Him our bestest friend, just like you would try to get to know someone you had a crush on really hard, except with God it's even more so! You have to be in LOVE with God, c'mon, just I WANT TO KNOW YOU MORE NOW! haha >_>
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