Is there such a thing as trying TOO HARD to be a Christian?

[DaffodilFlower]

I everyday Just my thoughts....

Everyone is right that we can't strive as a Christian or we will be going back to the law again. And you will just be trying to bear fruit with out Jesus.

I find and still learning that we need to learn as Christians that it is ok to make mistakes and not beat yourself up for it because you have failed.

How do we become a better Christians?
Well it will happen when we have a close relationship with the Lord. Only by making the effort in our relationship with the Lord we will begin to bear fruits. We won't need to try so hard it will just flow out!

Also Christianity is not about being perfect we need to rest and know that Jesus has already done this for us. What He wants from us is to be faithful and obedient. And we fail but we just need the Lord to help us keep getting up and start again. We will always fail but with God he will make those failures into a Diamond.

* It does not mean that we can keep stealing for instances. - Romans.

And sustaining a relationship with the Lord is hard too when things become dry. But we just keep praying that we need His help and keep clinging to Him.

Love in Christ
Daffodil

 

[KingZzub]

You can't try to be a Christian. You believe and receive or you try another method such as works and you fail.

http://en.search.wordpress.com/?q=run+through+romans

 

[rob64]

I everyday Just my thoughts....

Everyone is right that we can't strive as a Christian or we will be going back to the law again.

I feel led to reply to this.

"back to the law again" is a common false teaching. You see, JEWS were under the law. Unless you are a jew, you were never under the law to begin with. We are what the Bible calls "Gentiles and Greeks". In the greek language, a gentile or greek that is mentioned in the NT is any race other than Jewish.
It's one of the most mis-understood subjects, "the law".
Some of the Jews rejected Christ, so some of us gentiles wer "grafted into" Jesus. (The teaching of the Olive Tree)

Most people do not want to hear this.
When I learned about it, at first I totally rejected it. After all, I had been taught that "we were set free from the law". But after re-reading most of the NT, it all made perfect sense.
We are free from a law, but it's not the law that God gave to the Jews.

When we think of "law" we immediately think of the 10 commandments, and the Levitical law. (The letter of the law). Alot of ink has been penned in the NT about this law. But normally, it is addressed specifically to either Jews, or christian Jews. The NT uses this phrase alot, "TO THE JEW FIRST, AND ALSO TO THE GREEK". God offered grace to the Jews FIRST. Us gentiles weren't included, until some Jews rejected their Messiah. That's why it says, "God cut off some of the branches and grafted in Gentiles".

There are other kinds of laws besides the "letter of the law", or "regulatory law". For instance, God set in motion the laws of "nature", and laws of "principal".

We (gentiles) are under a law of principal. "For the wages of sin is death".
And most importantly, "FOR THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH"

Christ set us free from the law of sin and death, not the Jewish Law!

 

[Elijah2]

Hi QC,

I have noticed that when I have gone all-out for God in my life, that people seem turned away, and they make it socially uncomfortable for YOU because you made it socially uncomfortable for THEM. I noticed that I seemed to have more favor with people and got along with them better when I just lived my own life, and toned down the whole "serious Christian" thing somewhat.
Well mate, when you do this in need to know whether you are standing in front of wayside, stony, or thorny Christians, and I that’s what they are, then of course they will feel uncomfortable, because many of them like their “comfort zone”.

This has been a hard journey for me to strike this balance between the earthly and the heavenly.
But, what part, natural or supernatural?

I mean, you WANT to live for God, but when you really go all out, it gets really hard for you. And what is mystifying to me is that Jesus lived all out for the Father, but the only people who gave him problems were his own disciples and the religious leaders. The large majority of people accepted him.
Yes mate, when we live for our LORD JESUS CHRIST we do make many uncomfortable even some of the 30-fold and 60-fold.

We need to have a balance what living all out for our Lord Jesus Christ really means. DO you mean like a monk?

When one of His Disciples get amongst the fold, at times it’s like as though you pulled a pin out of a grenade and let the clip go, and hand to someone. Ha-ha-ha!

Then when you sit and think about that, you wonder, "Is there something wrong with my Christianity? Have I been taught wrong?"
No mate, it’s that you are a rough diamond and you need to grind away against the face of other rough diamonds, sometimes called “stones”!

Also, there is this disturbing trend I find that when I get more serious for God, more into the Bible, more attending church, more intense about spirituality, the more negative, angry, disappointed, and bitter I become, and I don't seem to be able to enjoy myself.
Well mate, when that happens there is possibly the wrong spirit in your church.

I’ve fallen over backwards to please people and to be accepted and to be a service, and sadly if you don’t belong to the clique then you OUT!

I have had this problem all my life, and I only seemed to be able to enjoy myself in life a few years back when I became less spiritual and started becoming more earthly.
Ah mate, the Body of Christ is more earthly and New Age than what you may think!

I found that the more I was in church, the more I prayed, the more I read the Bible, et cetera, the more I became "on edge" with everyone and everything.
Mate, I’ve been an out-of-church believer for a long time, and it does hurt at times when you have no fellowship. SO, I went to our church last Sunday and it was like walking into a refrigerator. Nobody walked up to me and said” “G’day, where have you been haven’t seen you for a long time?” And when I walked up to other people, they uncomfortably spoke to me and looked around just in case someone caught them talking to me.

Mate, in most churches there are more people who have their feet in TWO CAMPS!

Mate, I came to God in 1957, and I found our Lord Jesus Christ in 1991.

It all comes down to our foundation, and sadly those who are suppose tend and feed His lambs and sheep have failed HIM, and you and others just like me are not expressing their concerns, and begin to berate and badger themselves that they are to blame.

You are not to blame at all mate, those who are suppose tend, feed, and lead are the ones to be held accountable and responsible for your demise.

Now I find myself less spiritual, and I wish I was more spiritual with God without having all the negatives.
Mate, the negatives that you are talking about may be positives. Have you ever thought that our Lord Jesus Christ is giving you insight to what the Body of Christ is really like?

Your not the first person to express these concerns.

But, when our Lord Jesus Christ gives us insight into seeing things in other people, we need to also see the same things in ourselves.

Yes, at times I am negative now, but believe me, it is NOTHING compared to the way I used to be. When I was all up in it a few years back, I was very depressed and very down at times. I find it easier to forgive now than I used to. I find it easier to laugh, and I don't get offended now when people use profanity on TV or in the movies. I find things funny now whereas I used to look for a spiritual application in them.
Mate, many of us still carry many deep down hurts and offences in the layers of our hearts.

I was raised in a fundamentalist household dad was a 4-year grad of BJU in 1971], and way back in the mid-to-late 1970's, when beer commercials would come on television, dad would turn the sound all the way down. So one day, when I was at my grandparents' home spending the day with them, a beer commercial came on the tube. So what did my four-year-old little butt do? I marched right up to THEIR television and turned THEIR sound all the way down.

Another time, when I was eight years old, I was on a baseball team sponsored by Duffy's Pizza of Wilmington, NC [my hometown, lived there 35 years until December 2007]. So anyway, there was this old man who would sit in the dugout with us with a jug of water which he passed around to the boys so they wouldn't get too hot in the 100-degree temperatures with 100 percent humidity. Well, I knew this man drank alcohol, and I was SO paranoid about alcohol, I declined his offer of water from the jug, because I feared that he might have spiked it with some alcohol to give to us underage kids.

That's how extreme I grew up in the fundamentalist background.

Anyway, fast forward to my current situation ...

Some people would be sad, and would say I have fallen away to a point, but to me, these past 5-7 years have been some of the most enriching I have ever had in my life.

So now, I wonder what to do, going forward in my life with God.

I want to be pleasing to God.

But I also want to get along with people.

It's hard for me. I pray I can find this balance so I can have good relations.
Mate, what makes you so different to others? I bet if you talked to others, you will find that they are experiencing the same.

Mate, after 71 years of life, my life has been lonely to, like the other 260 million people around the world. This is life mate, and only you can change that life.

But, as sad as it, the enemy is always there stealing, destroying and killing anything that may resemble the CHURCH of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessings

 

[AudioArtist]

I feel led to reply to this.

"back to the law again" is a common false teaching. You see, JEWS were under the law. Unless you are a jew, you were never under the law to begin with. We are what the Bible calls "Gentiles and Greeks". In the greek language, a gentile or greek that is mentioned in the NT is any race other than Jewish.
It's one of the most mis-understood subjects, "the law".
Some of the Jews rejected Christ, so some of us gentiles wer "grafted into" Jesus. (The teaching of the Olive Tree)

Most people do not want to hear this.
When I learned about it, at first I totally rejected it. After all, I had been taught that "we were set free from the law". But after re-reading most of the NT, it all made perfect sense.
We are free from a law, but it's not the law that God gave to the Jews.

When we think of "law" we immediately think of the 10 commandments, and the Levitical law. (The letter of the law). Alot of ink has been penned in the NT about this law. But normally, it is addressed specifically to either Jews, or christian Jews. The NT uses this phrase alot, "TO THE JEW FIRST, AND ALSO TO THE GREEK". God offered grace to the Jews FIRST. Us gentiles weren't included, until some Jews rejected their Messiah. That's why it says, "God cut off some of the branches and grafted in Gentiles".

There are other kinds of laws besides the "letter of the law", or "regulatory law". For instance, God set in motion the laws of "nature", and laws of "principal".

We (gentiles) are under a law of principal. "For the wages of sin is death".
And most importantly, "FOR THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS HAS MADE ME FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH"

Christ set us free from the law of sin and death, not the Jewish Law!

I understand this, and I've come to see the Bible teaches it (in part - there is the mentioning of our conscience in Romans, which applies to even gentiles who haven't got the Law, but anyway...) I struggle with it, though; I mean, God can seem quite tribal or racially minded when we consider the whole Jew first / gentile next thing. Are we gentiles (I'm assuming you're not Jewish here, correct me if I'm wrong!) just some late addition because the Jews - the superior chosen race - rejected Christ? Romans seems to indicate as much.

 

[rob64]

I understand this, and I've come to see the Bible teaches it (in part - there is the mentioning of our conscience in Romans, which applies to even gentiles who haven't got the Law, but anyway...) I struggle with it, though; I mean, God can seem quite tribal or racially minded when we consider the whole Jew first / gentile next thing. Are we gentiles (I'm assuming you're not Jewish here, correct me if I'm wrong!) just some late addition because the Jews - the superior chosen race - rejected Christ? Romans seems to indicate as much.

Right, I'm a gentile.
Good points! I'm certainly no expert on this subject (wish I were), but here's what I believe;

Salvation/justification by grace through faith didn't start when the NT was being written. Back in the OT, they looked forward to Christ, where we look backward. But it's all faith.
God chose the Jews to be the race to bring this salvation to the world. Not because they were some "superior" race. I don't really know why He chose them. The important part is to accept it!
It's all part of God's perfect plan. "My ways are not your ways, and my thought are not your thought", God says.
We don't see the big picture. But He did make salvation available to us. We should be very thankful.
If He had chosen another race, we would still be asking why He chose that race.
He evidently needed to bring salvation through a human race.
It says, "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin". Animal sacrifice only "covered" man's sin, and reminded man of his sin. As it turned out, animal sacrifice "wasn't getting the job done", so to speak. So a human sacrifice had to be performed. Human sin required a human sacrifice in order to bring us back into a right standing with God. Jesus' sacrifice doesn't just "cover" sin. It wipes our slate clean.
Ultimately, God knew the outcome. He knew that some of the Jews would reject Christ. Which was His way of bringing us into the picture.
In OT times, gentiles COULD choose to be under the law. He did offer a way for gentiles back then as well.

 

[Tamara224]

I understand this, and I've come to see the Bible teaches it (in part - there is the mentioning of our conscience in Romans, which applies to even gentiles who haven't got the Law, but anyway...) I struggle with it, though; I mean, God can seem quite tribal or racially minded when we consider the whole Jew first / gentile next thing. Are we gentiles (I'm assuming you're not Jewish here, correct me if I'm wrong!) just some late addition because the Jews - the superior chosen race - rejected Christ? Romans seems to indicate as much.

No! It was always God's plan that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Israel... Go back to Genesis and see what God's promise to Abraham was! We aren't tacked on as God's plan B.

Also, you and Rob both need to read the book of Galatians again.

Paul specifically addressed the issue of whether Gentile believers should start following Mosaic Law and he unequivocally answered that with a NO!

 

[rob64]

No! It was always God's plan that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Israel... Go back to Genesis and see what God's promise to Abraham was! We aren't tacked on as God's plan B.

Also, you and Rob both need to read the book of Galatians again.

Paul specifically addressed the issue of whether Gentile believers should start following Mosaic Law and he unequivocally answered that with a NO!

I don't understand what you are implying here. Maybe you have me confused with someone else? I don't understand. Please explain!
I said that Gentiles were not under the law.
So if Paul addressed whether or not the Gentiles should START- key word start- following the law, that is proof in and of itself. Why would they START following something they are already following?

 

[Leah]

After reading most of the replies here I realized something:

Most of us have very similar struggles with our walk with God. Fear seems to be the main thing that gets in our way. Fear of messing up, fear of not doing what God wants us to do or not do, fear of punishment and condemnation, fear of being lied to, and fear of missing out on all that God has for us.

For the most part, we want to please and love God, in spite of our flaws. But how?


IMO, I think that no matter what denomination/church we're affliated with, we're all in the same boat as far as pleasing the One we love. So I guess we're not as different or distinct as we think we are.


When it comes to the Father, there is no distinction. We all have a heart and that is what He wants.

 

[Tamara224]

I don't understand what you are implying here. Maybe you have me confused with someone else? I don't understand. Please explain!
I said that Gentiles were not under the law.
So if Paul addressed whether or not the Gentiles should START- key word start- following the law, that is proof in and of itself. Why would they START following something they are already following?

Sorry, I misread your post. I thought you were saying that we're still under the Mosaic Law. But you were saying we were never under it to begin with and still aren't under it.

 

[DaffodilFlower]

Hi rob I did not say Christians should go back to the law. I was saying that if Christians were striving to be a good christian then they would be trying to obey the law. And you can't do that. You need to allow the Lord to change you so all the fruits of His Spirit can flow through you. Better? Thanks for your long reply.

I know Christ has fulfilled the law by dying on the cross for all of us sinners. What we fail to do He could do!!! How wonderful how lovely...

Imana
For the most part, we want to please and love God, in spite of our flaws. But how?

Hi imana! What He wants us is to be faithful and obedient to Him. Continue to draw close to him, spending time in pray and His word and being in a strong Godly community church. And make use of the gifts and talents that the Lord has blessed you with. And the other things like bearing His fruits will come as you have a close relationship with the Lord.

Just concentrate in getting to know the Lord more and being with other believers and you will grow. And as the Lord blesses you bless others with what you have received.

Does that help?

One really important thing is to always stick to God's truth in His word when you want to find out how to please Him, Seek Godly Christians who can show you how to live in His love and in His truth. That way you won't be mislead into all sort of deceptive ways of how you can please the Lord..

Just get it all from the words of Jesus that is all we need. And read Christian books that is about helping you know who Christ is. When it becomes not off Christ and very focus on self then you know it won't be very helpful to you and confused you further.

http://www.desiringgod.org is a good site to have a look..

The Lord just has helped me realize something very important! It is so important that You need to be in a Godly church and with Godly Christians so you don't drift away or get influences by the wrong people. Ask the Lord to fill you with his love and fill you with more of Him. More of Him less of you. Ask the Lord to give you that desire. To reflect him and nothing else. And when you do, the things of the world won't have a hold on you because Christ has center place in your life.

If you make the world your center or if you put the world higher then Christ your life will get very confusing. Because it is not in the truth. And whatever is not in the truth will fall apart..you will really get so confused I know.

A good book to get is called setapartfemininity!!! Radical living for Christ!
http://setapartgirl.com/my-books.html

Love in Christ
Daffodil

 

[rob64]

Hi rob I did not say Christians should go back to the law. I was saying that if Christians were striving to be a good christian then they would be trying to obey the law. And you can't do that. You need to allow the Lord to change you so all the fruits of His Spirit can flow through you. Better? Thanks for your long reply. Daffodil

Hi Daff. I'm sorry.
Sometimes i can be sooooo technican. I gotta work on that.
Peace!

 

[rob64]

Sorry, I misread your post. I thought you were saying that we're still under the Mosaic Law. But you were saying we were never under it to begin with and still aren't under it.

No problem mamm.
Just being funny here, is your confusion due to being "legally blonde", lol