. The Art of Living a Christian
Life by J.R. Miller Whoever claims to live
in Him must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2.6 we have only successfully acquired
the art of living a Christian life when we have learned to
apply the principles of true religion and enjoy its help and
comfort in our daily life. It is easy to join in devotional
exercises, to quote Bible promises, to extol the beauty of the Scriptures,
But there are many who do these things whose religion utterly
fails them in the very places and at the very times when it
ought to prove their staff and stay. All of us must go out from
the sweet services of the Sunday into a week of very real and
very commonplace life. We must mingle with people who
are not angels. We must pass through experiences
that will naturally worry and vex us. Those about us, either
wittingly or unwittingly, annoy and try us. We will meet many
troubles and worries in ordinary weekday life. There are continual
irritations and annoyances. The problem is to live a beautiful
Christian life in the face of all these hindrances. How can
we get through the tangled briars which grow along our path without
having our hands and feet torn by them? How can we live sweetly
amid the vexing and irritating things, and the multitude of
little worries and frets which infest our way and which we cannot
evade? It is not enough merely to get
along in any sort of way, to drag to the close of every long
wearisome day, happy when night comes to end the strife. Life
should be a joy and not a burden. We should live victoriously,
ever master of our experiences, and not tossed by them like a
leaf on the dashing waves. Every earnest Christian wants
to live a truly beautiful life, whatever the circumstances may
be. A little child, when asked what
it was to be a Christian, replied, For me to be a Christian is to
live as Jesus would live, and behave as Jesus would behave,
if He were a little girl and lived at our house. no better
definition of the Christian life could be given. Each one of us
is to live just as Jesus would, if He were living out our little
life in the midst of its actual environment, mingling with the
same people with whom we must mingle and exposed to the very
annoyances, trials, and provocations to which we are exposed. We want
to live a life that will please God and that will bear witness
to the genuineness of our piety. Leaving you an example, so that
you should follow in His steps. 1 Peter 2.21