CONFESSIONS OF A CARNAL CHRISTIAN.

Abba Father, help us as Christ followers to see our desperate need, minute by minute, to constantly walk in complete dependence upon Your Holy Spirit. Help us to take our exhausted, worn-out, stressed, frustrated, perplexed, independent 'Christian' lives and exchange them for a simple faith of complete reliance upon Christ Jesus. Unless we are completely dependent upon Your Spirit, we are living a Christ-less Christianity. As much as this sounds paradoxical it’s tragically true of most believers. Help us to examine our faith like Paul pleaded with the Galatian believers to do in Galatians 3:3- ‘Having begun in the Spirit are you now trying to be made perfect (mature) by the flesh?’ In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.

“The flesh will sing in the choir, teach Sunday School, preside at a elders’ meeting, preach from the pulpit, organize an evangelistic crusade, go to Bible college, volunteer for the mission field, and a thousand other things, all of which may be in themselves otherwise legitimate, if only it can keep its neck out of the noose. The flesh will threaten, shout, strut, domineer, sulk, plot, creep, beg, plead, or sob, whatever the situation may demand in the interests of its own survival. By any and all means it will seek to cause every Christian to live by his own strength instead of by the power and grace of the Lord Jesus, and to conclude that doing so is actually a good thing!” – Major Ian Thomas.

Check out the following statement: “A Christ-less Christianity.” Sounds foolish, doesn’t it, believer? But, that’s exactly what is occurring if we are living ignorantly to the Holy Spirit’s right to call the shots. Briefly, let’s discuss a few practical ways how we can examine ourselves to check if we’re living out our Christianity in carnality rather than in Christ.

WARNING: This is going to hurt a bit. The last thing your flesh wants is to take a back seat to anyone or anything but that’s exactly what needs to happen in order to follow Christ, so let it hurt!

Is your faith overcomplicated?

The Christian faith is profoundly simple and simply profound. Paul spoke of this profound simplicity in 2 Corinthians 11:3. These believers were those who knew Christ as Redeemer. They were born again. Their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Yet Paul was extremely concerned for them. “I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Paul was anxiously concerned that nothing in their lives would distract from the sheer simplicity, which is in Christ- the centrality of a Person, the Lord Jesus Himself, in residence within their redeemed humanity (Thomas, p.8, 2006).

Remember how you received Christ, believer? It was by faith alone through grace alone. Why then after we start walking with Christ do believers tend to make things overcomplicated? An intimate walk with Christ consists of a simple, yet active faith. It is renouncing our “old way” of life that once centered on our “Adamic independence.” Now in Christ, it’s a life of complete dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Get rid of that old life and put on your new life in Christ!

“Experiencing this simplicity is the greatest need today throughout the Church worldwide. The utmost need in every ministry group, every missionary outreach, every denomination, is to rediscover the Lord Jesus Christ and the indispensability of His indwelling presence within the believer . . . detaching your Christianity from Christ is to reduce it to the impotence of a dead religion, impersonal to Him and impersonal to you, just an intellectual exercise or a sentimental formula, and (Biblical) Christianity is neither.” - Major Ian Thomas.

Are you distracted?

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” – 1 John 2:15-17.

Everyday there's a spiritual war waging all around us which fights for our affections. Little by little, the devil wants to defeat us by subtly pulling us away from Christ. The enemy celebrates every time we put anything over our love for Christ. Please don’t fall for it! Nothing that this broken world can offer will ever satisfy you more than Christ in you. Is there currently anything in your life that you are putting before Christ? If so, it must be dealt with radically. NOW! And get this, it CAN be done, believer, because the very Spirit of Christ who lives in you is only One who can do it! So, get out of His way and let Him have complete access.

“Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your logical act of worship. And do not be conformed anymore to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .” – Romans 12:1-2

Who is central?

“Since Adam fell, only one Person has been normal. For 33 years, the Lord Jesus walked this earth to demonstrate normality, to demonstrate man as God created man to be . . . constantly affirming the centrality of the Father.” – Major Ian Thomas.

Please realize that our righteousness is in Christ alone. There is nothing we can possibly produce on our own merit to gain “brownie points” with God. If it’s not in Christ it’s rooted in self and as a result that translates to “self-righteousness.” Self-righteousness is pointless, meaningless, and an affront to God. There will be no self-righteousness in heaven and there is no room for it on earth as we walk hand in hand with Christ. Everything we have is because of Jesus, so why do so many Christians try to take His righteousness and remove the "super" from "supernatural"? This is the antithesis of God’s will for your life.

It’s only in Christ that we can stand and it’s only in His Spirit that we can function as new creations. We are senseless if we fail to live in complete reliance upon the indwelling Christ. The Christian life minus Christ’s centrality is like filling up your car with gas, but instead of getting in and driving away, you decide to try to push the car down the road instead (Thomas, p.54, 2006). It’s in the work of Christ alone that all of our hope, trust, and dependence must be centered around.

Nothing less. Nothing else.

Resources:

Thomas, Ian. “The Indwelling Life of Christ.” 2006. Multnomah Publishers.