Living A Christian Life

This Christian walk is a journey, we don't start off perfect, we become perfect over time. This is the reason for the epistles, they perfect us after we've received Christ in our lives. The teachings (what the word doctrine means) are to guide us in perfecting holiness and godliness in our Christian walk. The apostles spent 3yrs with Jesus before they were able to walk as apostles, before they were perfect in their walk with God. Apostle Paul was a pharisee, so he was already living for God, he just didn't know who God truly was until the road to Damascus, it probably took him some years as a pharisee to be able to live right also, but as the Bible says, the Jews had the oracles of God, it was their everyday life since they were children, they were used to confessing their sins every year and once Jesus came into their lives, his Spirit (grace) gave them the power to live right, but Jesus didn't just give us grace to be able to live right, he gave us grace and truth (the revelation of his word/the Bible) to teach us how to live right. The grace is what enables us to be able to obey the truth, that's why we must grow in grace through prayer to give us the ability to follow the truth. Christianity is a process, we don't start off perfect, we are perfected over time.

Stumbling over sin is part of the process of becoming perfect in our walk with God. Trials bring patience and eventually glory. Glory is when we are able to walk perfectly in our faith. When we are able to fully obey God, apostle Paul said that when our love for God is made perfect, referring to what Jesus said in the gospel about loving our neighbor and being perfect even as God is perfect. This is why apostle Paul put love above every spiritual gift. When we love God, he is perfected in us, we don't need spiritual gifts because the greatest commandment is to love God which will cause everything else to fall into place. Spiritual gifts are to minister to unbelievers. God performed miracles through the apostles to prove that their message was legitimately from God. We shouldn't get carried away with miracles, they have a specific purpose and that's to prove that God backs up your message. Let grace and truth help you to be able to live right, that's the main thing. Keep the main thing the main thing.