When you received Christ as Savior and Lord, you received life- spiritual life. Prior to coming to saving faith, you or I had no relationship with the Creator. We were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) and on the road that leads to eternal separation and damnation. However, upon receiving Christ, you and I received life. That’s what it means to be born again. You are dead spiritually when you are born into this world and so you must be born spiritually. And it is only through Jesus Christ that this transformation does take place. “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life, but he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (I John 5:11,12)

The sad story is that many churches imply that once the genuine salvation experience occurs, the new believer has arrived. The truth is they have only just begun. This is the beginning of the road to discipleship not the end. Now the struggles intensifies because we must learn to think in a whole other way – God’s way. This requires study to rightly divide the word of truth. (II Tim 2:15) It requires commitment to “exercise yourself toward godliness.” (I Tim 4:7) We must develop the attitude of the Psalmist “O God you are my God; early I will seek You; My soul longs for You…In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”( Ps 63:1) And we must become “doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourself.” (James 1:22) We must learn to put off the old man and to put on the new by being “renewed in the spirit of our mind.” (Eph 4:22-24) Thus we learn to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the desires of the flesh. (Gal 5:16)

How are you doing in your walk? Recently, my youngest son and I had a good conversation, while we were vacationing together with the family. He had wanted to spend more time reading his Bible that week, but failed to do so. We discussed the fact that the Christian life is always a work in progress. At the age of thirty, he has made great strides in his relationship with the Lord, however he continues to see his pitfalls and shortcomings just like the rest of us. He realizes that he has not arrived and it is really a commitment of disciplining his mind more and more to conform to the mind of Christ. He simply put it this way, “God’s way not Todd’s way.” 

Have you got to the point as my son has that this life is not about your way, rather its about God’s way? Are you willing to change those things that He reveals to you? Are you progressing in your relationship with Him? A purposeful life really is a life lived for Him. It will reap eternal rewards!