A Christian, by
define, is one called to imitate Jesus. In
the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus spoke this truth saying,
“…If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me.” For the past few weeks, the
youth group and I have been considering this truth.
The truth that as Christians, one is called to do… one is called live
out his or her faith. Scripture is clear
that a Christian is one who is called to find and follow the path God has
prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10).
So, the
question the youth are endeavoring to answer is the same one each one must
answer… what purpose for which God has fashioned? Too often this question is avoided. Too often, one just survives. One wakes up, gets dressed, goes to school or
work, comes home and does whatever the evening holds, goes to bed, and then
wakes up to do it all again. Is that
really living or is it just surviving?
As Christians,
our answer is not to settle for the mundane but to live a God-Sized life. We are not to live an ordinary life be to be
extraordinary. In a sermon titled, The
Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis may have summoned it up best when he wrote “If we
consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the
rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires
not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with
drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant
child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine
what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily
pleased.”