How Shall We Live

The American dream is what we live for right, well some of us. The big white house with the white picket fence. This is not a bad thing it is actually pretty cool if this is what the Lord gives you, but is this really what we should be focusing on? Are our lives about what we have or is it is about a way of life that will give God glory. We can take a look at how the people of the Old Testament lived, or were supposed to live, and learn a lot about how our lives are to be lived now.

Old Testament saints lived by a book, well, actually, books of laws. God, The Lord Almighty, loved them dearly and wanted the best for them as well as to bring glory to Himself. Because of this He gave laws that were to set His people apart and to protect them so that they would not live like the nations around them and through their lives nations would know the Lord of the Israelites and worship Him alone. It worked until the Israelites were in trouble for breaking the laws that were intended for their good and turned and worshipped other gods. One might say they blended in the society and became part instead of set apart. God was very merciful to the Israelites and wanted them to live in such a way that the true God was known to everyone. God showed His faithfulness, His mercy, His grace, His wrath as well His glory and power to the Israelites and the nations around them.

How shall we live as New Testament believers is in a sense the same as the Israelites. Some New Testament believers look at the Israelites as if they were no good foolish people. They saw the miracles of the Red Sea, not to mention the delivery from the Egyptians and yet they kept on sinning and living in disbelief and not trusting the God. Yeah, that rights and we are not very different are we! But we should be! What I mean by this is God never changes. His purposes for us as believers have not changed. He wants all people to know Him, that is including all nations and all peoples groups in the world, that He is God alone and deserves all honer and glory and He wants to do that through us - His people.

We should be able to obey the Lord even more now because we have the whole Bible in writing. There is one more supernatural Being that New Testament believers have that enables us to live holy lives that are set apart for God. It is the person of the Holy Spirit. Because of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence in our lives we have the ability to live holy lives and to love God and others. With this truth known we must examine our lives to see if who we are allowing to lead us. If we are consumed with the things of this life, for example, the American dream and only living for ourselves and not for God and others, we need to question if we are allowing the Holy Spirit to lead or if we are His to start out with. New Testament believers have the privilege to live holy, set apart, sacrificial, and absolutely sold out lives to the message and life of Christ Jesus our Lord.