Sunday, February 12, 2017

The Whole Purpose of Becoming a Christian

Image may contain: one or more people, people sitting and outdoor
Ann Arbor

You can't consistently dwell in the presence of God and stay unchanged.

You can't live a life of abiding in Christ and be fruitless.

The transformation God desires to happen in us is into nothing less than Christlikeness (Galatians 4:19).

The transformation into increasing Jesus-likeness is not a result of us trying harder. "Will worship" will get you nowhere near Christ. A branch attached to a pear tree will produce pears, effortlessly. Therefore, live connected to Jesus.

The promise is astonishing, and serves to distinguish Christianity from religion.

C.S. Lewis wrote:

"Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has—by what I call ‘good infection’. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else."
- Mere Christianity