It is the approach used by thousands of Christians who pray a prayer for God’s help at the beginning of the day but who proceed from that point onward as if it all depended on them-unless they meet a crisis situation. This may be the attitude of some people who like to quote the saying, “Lord, help me remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that You and I together can’t handle.” Sadly enough, this is probably the most common approach among sincere Christians today. It is the assumption-unconscious, perhaps, but still very real-that there is a certain reservoir of goodness, wisdom, and spiritual strength within my own character that I should draw on for the ordinary duties of life but that beyond that, I need the Lord’s help. The chief characteristic of this way is a partial dependence on the Lord: the unconscious but nevertheless real attitude that I can of my own self live the Christian life up to a point but that I need the Lord’s help after that point. Many of us have tried this approach and, if we are honest with ourselves, have discovered that this, too, is not God’s way.Ĭlick to read “You’re Doing Fellowship Wrong” WAY #3Ī third way is the “Lord, help me” approach. We conclude that we should not work at living the Christian life but simply trust God, who does the work for us. We decide, perhaps because we have heard or read it someplace, that any effort on our part to live the Christian life is “of the flesh.” We just “turn it all over to the Lord” and allow Him to live His life through us. Having experienced the futility of the self-effort way, we go to the other extreme, deciding to do nothing at all. The second way to live the Christian life is frequently a reaction to the first. Most of us have probably tried this solo approach to the Christian life and found it wanting. We may have lots of Christian activity and even apparent Christian success, but we will possess little genuine Spirit-produced fruit. Instead of growing vigorously in our lives, those gracious qualities will be stunted and withered. The fruit of the Spirit-love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on-will hardly be visible. But in our daily spiritual life, we will experience mostly failure, frustration, and, very likely, unsatisfactory relationships with other people. If we attempt such a solo effort, some meager expressions of the life of Christ will remain in us, for, after all, we are still in union with Him.

Jesus stated very plainly, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The first way is to attempt to do it entirely on our own, by our own effort and willpower. There are basically four ways to live the Christian life.

Christian ways of life