"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."
Christian lifestyle happens deliberately. And since it's to be deliberate, it's based on choices. We are faced with an enormous amount of options everyday. If we don't think about how we are going to live, we fall unintentionally into the model that pervades the culture around us. God said through the prophet Isaiah that nobody stops to think. That's part of our old nature, it doesn't think, it acts on instinct and impulse. Our Father, by his Spirit, can help us think through the development of our lifestyle, whether that be in the context of our family, our work, our goals and even our dreams. He loves to process these ideas with us, encouraging the interaction it takes. In the process we are surprised to learn that life can be different, that we can find new beginnings. We find that there's a world beyond the treadmill and conveyor belt.
"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."
Christian lifestyle tends not to be dramatic or sensational, but a people who have found fulfillment in their re-union with God. A people who now lead simple, quiet lives without the frantic pursuit of something illusive. We are to live lives wrapped-up in self-sacrifice, carrying on acts of kindness and helping others process the good news. A life of love.
"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
Articles on Christian Lifestyle:
On the Ministry On Lifestyle
- The Common Ministry - The grassroots of Plain Living
- The Back drop to the Ministry - Carrying pain well
- Bi-vocational Ministry
- Incarnate Ministry
On the Church
- Institutionalization
- Backward Ministry
Questions@valleyfriendschurch.org Topical Index