Keys To A Dynamic Christian Life!

Understanding the attributes of God—His holiness, love, sovereignty, wisdom, grace, and power—is the greatest thing that can ever happen to us, because a dynamic Christian life begins with one's view of God. Everyone is influenced by their view of God. If I believe in the sovereignty of God, I am not upset when things go wrong. If I believe God works in the affairs of nations; if I believe he has a plan for man, then even when adversity, sorrow, and tragedy come, I can handle them, because I know that the God who rules my life will provide for me as he promised.

1) God is trustworthy. But if we don't understand who God is, we can't trust him. The Bible says, "The just shall live by faith" (Romans 1:17, KJV), that "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23, KJV), and "without faith it is impossible to please him" (Hebrews 11:6, KJV). I can't demonstrate faith if I don't know and understand the object of my faith, which is God, and His Holy Word.

2) Learn to understand God and love His Word. That knowledge cannot be superficial, shallow, and legalistic. In fact, many people who are given a list of dos and don'ts give up and say, "There's no way I can live the Christian life." In order to understand the keys to a dynamic Christian life, one needs to realize that the Christian life is a life of relationship—a supernatural relationship. Man cannot live the Christian life alone.

3) Understand: that the Christ of the Scriptures lives in us. Jesus Christ is God incarnate, perfect God, perfect man, the visible expression of the invisible God, the One in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, the One who said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Matthew 28:18). And yet he, in his resurrection power, is closer to us than our hands, our feet, our very breath.

4) Everything about the Christian life involves relationship to Jesus, the incomparable, peerless, matchless Son of God; acknowledge Christ's presence within you and His lordship of your life. Ask him to think with your mind, love with your heart, speak with your lips, and to continue seeking and saving the lost through you. That's what Jesus wants to do in each of our lives.

5) Prayer is the lifeblood of a vital relationship with Christ. Through prayer we have been given the power of attorney. "I will do whatever you ask in my name" (John 14:13). One cannot possibly experience the dynamic Christian life apart from the power and privilege and exercise of prayer. Prayer is not just talking to God. It is communion. It's listening. One has to be careful, of course, because many people have said that God told them to do all kinds of weird things. When God speaks to us in our innermost beings, his voice is consistent with Scripture. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13, KJV). God never contradicts through impressions what he has written in his Word.

It is a sad fact that, despite the privilege of prayer, in spite of our knowledge of God and relationship with him, we often fail in our attempt to live the Christian life. The carnal Christian is a believer who has experienced the new birth but is living, as Paul describes it, as a baby Christian, sometimes acting as though he or she doesn't even know Jesus Christ at all.

Why do Christians experience this conflict? Why is there this failure to live what we know? I see three reasons: the world, the flesh, and the devil. As we read in 1 John 2, we're not to love the world or the things that are in the world. I like the Living Bible passage: "Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; for all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever" (1 John 2:15-17).

In Galatians 5:16, 17, we read: "Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want." As long as we live, warfare with the flesh will go on. Paul speaks of this in Romans 7: "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.... What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:19, 24).

Along with the flesh, Satan is also a very real foe. Ephesians 6:12 says, "For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies—the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world" (TLB). There are demonic powers in the world. We need to recognize that apart from the strength and the enabling of our Lord, living within us through the Holy Spirit, we cannot possibly resist the attacks and the temptations of Satan. He is a formidable enemy. It is not possible to be a victorious Christian, to live the dynamic life, apart from the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you" (Acts 1:8). The person who tries to serve God in the flesh without the Holy Spirit is doomed to failure.

The only one who can help us to live a Bible-obeying Christian life is Jesus Christ himself, through the enabling of the Holy Spirit. John 16 records what Jesus said to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin... he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself;... he shall glorify me" (verses 7, 8, 13, 14, KJV).

When we understand that the Holy Spirit dwells in us and draw upon his special power by faith, we can live victorious, dynamic Christian lives.
Through all of our lives, the old flesh (old mindset) wars against the new (mindset) nature. We have to decide whom we are going to serve—whether we are going to allow Satan through the old nature to influence our lives, or if we are going to draw upon God's strength through the new nature to live according to the Word of God. It is an act of the will—a decision that determines our destiny.