On Monday, I asked the question “What does it mean *to you* to daily live the Christian life?”  (Click to see that post and the responses shared in the comments.)

I also made this statement: Repetition with purpose can be very valuable; empty repetition, however, can suck the joy out of life. It’s important to know why you do things. [Tweet this!]

My thought in asking the question was to simply think intentionally about what it means to walk through life each day as a follower of Christ.  With this focus on what I’m here for it seems to make me more intentional about living life and helps keep me from just going through the motions.  Of course, your mileage may vary.

There’s not one right answer to the question, and I have no intention to judge anyone’s answer.  Your answer is yours, and I think it reflects the season you are going through in your spiritual life.

As I thought about the question I came up with the following statement:

Living by Christ daily to me is actively living in the presence of Christ in a real relationship through the Spirit, listening to His leading both inwardly and outwardly, and following through with how Christ desires to change me and express Himself through me.

A few things this implies:

The Christian life can only be lived by Christ.  He indwells us and lives the Christian life in us.  We live as His followers in, by, through, and to Him.  Jesus is the Source.  None of this is meant to be accomplished in our own power.

Life in Christ is not passive.  Faith is an active thing.  We pray, seek, pursue, love, listen, serve.

We can always live in the presence of Christ.  We can learn to tune into His frequency during any activity.  So we live in a constant awareness of Christ in our spirit and in our life.

We can have a real relationship with Christ.  We can know Him as we know people in our lives today.  We can’t physically touch Him, of course, but we can have a very intimate relationship with Him because He can touch a part of us that few humans can: our spirit.  Through this our Lord feeds us with Real Life!

Christ leads us in our spirit, but also through Scriptures, books, messages, and the people and experiences in our lives.  He is always speaking to us.  May we have ears and hearts to hear Him.  Listening to Him and following His lead is part of what it means to live by His indwelling life.

We are always in the process of transformation, being changed to be able to express more of Christ.  Again, this is not passive.  The Spirit leads us to act in many different ways and scenarios, and this builds practical experience that serve as examples to ourselves and others as to how Christ desires to work through us.

We are in partnership with Christ.  We are not zombies or robots (hopefully).  While I hope you want to grow in expressing more of Christ, He gives us the freedom to choose Him in each moment.  As we choose Him, we gain more and more of His Life and draw closer to Him, and He teaches us how to love others with Divine Love.  This also means that His life in us is naturally relational, and therefore needs a community to be expressed in.

Do you have any thoughts to share about this?  Anything to add or take away?  How would you answer the same question?

Follow the Life!

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