Using our Unique Talents to Impact Culture

Ephesians 2:1-10 (NIV) As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Let me tell you about the post-modern man in his 20s from suburbia, or the inner city.  He is quite the character, and loves to party and have fun.  Are those things evil inherently?  Not at all.  The post-modern man has many beliefs, but they are in stark contrast to the modern man's beliefs.  The modern man might've had certain political beliefs, scientific beliefs, spiritual beliefs, and even philosophical beliefs.  The post-modern man has no such interests and thus no such beliefs.  The post-modern man is the ultimate entertainment junkie.  He has favorite movies, favorite musicians, favorite celebrities, favorite alcoholic beverages, and favorite sports teams.  This is often the extent of the post modern's interests and thus has few further beliefs on topics we in the church might've considered important to the masses at some point in history.

The post-modern man's heaven is the ultimate party experience.  It is often described in movies like American Pie, Dazed and Confused, American Graffiti and so on.  The ultimate party experience!  Everyone is dancing to trendy music, alcohol all around, the good old boys all hanging together, with trophy women on their arms.  The ultimate high, the ultimate experience. 

Morality and truth mean little to the post-modern man.  Satisfaction is his goal.  As belief is the engine for the spiritual walk in Christianity, money is the engine for the pleasure seeking walk of the self-worshiper. 

Laughter is at the top of the list in any social interaction.  Grotesque jokes, obscene comments, derogatory language, and constant sexual references.  One could say sexual intercourse is the method by which the post-modern man in his twenties worships his maker, which he considers to be himself.  The post-modern man considers women to be a commodity, and he loves his bros, or at least however far his bros will get him to the ultimate "fun" feeling, the commodity of women, the supplies of tap alcohol, and sometimes even the supplies of multicolored pills and poppers. 

Often this lifestyle will not bother the post-modern man, but if it does, there are many facade pseudo-spiritual remedies for such depravity.  Many a hippie would claim to be buddhist, or new age, or just spiritual in general.  That way there is no need for a lifestyle change, but a significant possibility to cover up their own guilt at depravity, drug addiction, alcoholism, cheating, stealing, lying, and pornography addiction. 

The post-modern man loves video games, computer games, the latest gaming consoles, facebook, twitter, the internet, and free pornography websites galore.  He expounds constantly on the corruption of politics and religion, and refuses to work a job because he would never want to support the evils of such sinister mega-corporations. 

All the while his words may expound a certain level of truth, his own utterly selfish dope infested beer can littered room at his parent's house tells a different story.  He cries constantly at the evils of the world, yet very much serves them in his daily life.  He always has a new idea and a new thought, but never any action to back up all his random delusions while tripping on coricidin, half drunk, and wired up on clonazepam and amphetamines that he stole from his dad's bathroom cabinet. 

Victory for this man in his twenties is vast riches, bursting bank accounts, fancy new cars, and a dyed blonde orange skinned trophy wife with breast implants. 

There is no place for truth or religion in this young man's deranged mind.  He's drunk on what the mainstream media has fed him, what Hollywood has called good, and what the music industry has blasted into his ears as "cool."  A topic like Christianity is as foreign to the post-modern kid in his twenties as a UFO sighting.  That's no "fun" to talk about.  It's no "fun" to do.  It's "boring" and "I don't care."

It's not pretty is it?  I know, let me tell you, I know.  I used to be that kid. 

This lifestyle is the proliferation of Satan's plan for humanity.  His work is quite completed in that young man.  It's not that there is no God and is no Satan, it's that even if there was, the young man wouldn't care anyway.  The effects of sin, and the deceit of Satan is the evil one's ultimate power to deceive humanity (John 6:66). 

So, how can we as the body of Christ on Earth reach out to this twisted fellow? 

We can't.

He doesn't care and he doesn't want to talk to us.  Which is why prayer is so important.  It is only by the work of the Holy Spirit moving among the nations that this young man can begin to hunger for spiritual truth.  Prayer, prayer, prayer. 

Of course if the church had a larger and more powerful voice in the public circles, television, the internet, music and so on, this young man might not be in such a depraved state.  Engaging culture is so very important, and that's the wonderful thing; we as Christians absolutely can engage culture. 

This is where our diversity comes as a great asset.  There are Christian musicians, Christian businessmen, Christian photographers, Christian graphic designers, Christian writers (like myself), Christian speakers, Christian product designers, and on and on and on.  There are Christians among every demographic, every social circle, every interest group, and every level of income in western society.

We are to be conformed to the image of Christ, yet that conformity is once again a paradox within Christianity, and there are many.  In this case, we are to conform to the image of Christ, yet ironically this also means pursuing our own unique spiritual gifts, and our innate God-given talents.

There is an aspiration to live as Jesus Christ lived, with his perfection of resistance to sin and sharing of the truth, but that does not mean I have to buy sandles, grow my hair out, grow a beard, and wear white pajamas everywhere I go.  To be Christian is to be unique and diverse, with unique strengths and creative talents to contribute to the culture, to the body, and to the glory of Jesus Christ.

I'd like you to be thinking on that topic, what unique gifts do you have to contribute to engaging culture for Jesus Christ?  How can you share his message with your own unique gifts? 

This is an absolutely wonderful thing, because we have certain things we love to do, like for me, I absolutely love to write.  And look, I can be in this blissful state of writing on my computer, be loving every minute of it, and be able to share the Bible, share the love of Jesus Christ, and encourage other Christians, in my spare time.  Isn't that wonderful? 

You've got talents to contribute, so be thinking on that.  And let me encourage you, you've got it in you to be not just an average Christian, but a powerhouse Christian of incredible faith.  We've been saved from the ugly fate of the post-modern man, women, whatever.  We've been spared from that.  It breaks my heart, the new heart Jesus gave me, to see so many still lost in that.  So let me encourage you, step up onto the battle lines, the front lines of cultural engagement.  Many Christians have been saved from death by Jesus, but hang back, quiet when they are so deeply needed on the frontlines.

The final work is of the Holy Spirit, which will be moved by God's sovereign will, but will also be moved by our earnest prayers, as the representative body of Christ on Earth.  So be in prayer.  But then also engage culture with your unique talents, via the internet, via your local coffee shops, local government, businesses, missions, your college or university, or just your day job.

There are so many little things we can do.  Imagine if every person reading these words started leaving free Bibles at laundry mats, or put spiritual journey pamphlets on community boards at gas stations, or just spoke to a coworker about coming to church sometime.  Imagine if every Christian in the world started doing that.. today.  Wow.  That would be something.  Not every Christian is willing to, but I bet you are.  And those are just things every Christian ought to be doing.  Engaging culture is more than leaving Bible's at coffee shops or talking to coworkers about Christ.

Engaging culture is really synonymous, in the United States at least, with engaging and interacting in secular media outlets, like the internet for example.   Another example, in a corporate sense, would be Liberty University in Virginia, the college I attend, by distance.  Liberty University engages culture by having division 1 teams in basketball, football, and so on.  They can then represent Christianity in those hard to reach arenas of sports and entertainment.  An individual example in music would be LeCrae a rapper who constantly represents for Jesus to other high level musicians.  In the NFL you have Tim Tebow.  In the realm of reality TV there is Duck Dynasty.  Be in prayer about God raising up more brave and vocal representatives of Christ in all areas of our extremely corrupt media and culture...

Get creative, and think outside the box with engaging culture.  I always mention the internet first because it's a great starting point to build confidence in publicly declaring, plus it's effective, because of the sheer volumes of people that can be reached almost instantaneously.  I want people all over the globe, from every tribe and nation and language to know and receive the love that belongs to them in Christ Jesus.

I love Jesus so much, because he saved me from being a drug addicted money chasing womanizer.  On a personal note, I've now been clean and sober over 16 months, and yesterday I had my first day of work at Salvation Army of Wausau!  So exciting!  I'm an intake worker at a homeless shelter now, and so far I love it.  I love helping others.

I love the light feeling Jesus puts in my heart every morning.  I love it so much, it's so foundational, it's so incredible, it's redeeming to everything I used to be, and feeling how I now feel, I want everyone to know about how awesome and loving Jesus Christ is, and how Christianity is the complete and utter truth of life on Earth.  

I want everyone to know Jesus has died for their sins and has made a way for them to eternal life.  He will help you today, to change, to become a decent man or woman, and he also vertically completes all requirements on, under, and above heaven for your eternal salvation in heaven, in the next life, at new Jerusalem, our hopeful coming city.  The place that is real and true, and does actually really exist.  This I believe.  The moment one has believed in his heart in the risen Lord Jesus Christ, he is saved.  Nothing can take that from him.  The vertical work is complete, the eternal life is finished, by Jesus on the cross, and now horizontally, we want to live well and love others, not because of a list of rules, but because of the grace and mercy we've been shown.

It was mercy for God to remove our sins on the cross, but it is grace that he would walk beside us all the days of our remaining lives, sanctifying us, changing us, encouraging us, and comforting us.  And as if the moment of the removal of our sins as we believed wasn't enough, he wipes our feet clean daily as we walk through the muck and sin of this world.

What a God we have!  What false god of Taoism, Buddhism, pantheism, new age, or Hinduism can compare to our God?  Broken clay figures, scattered on the grounds, lies a plenty when we truly understand Jesus Christ, our wonderful personal God, what a wonderful God who Saves!

¹⁴ For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  -Ephesians 3:14-21 (NIV)

12 YouTube Sermons by Mark Driscoll on Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ is the very center of Christian faith.  There is no Christianity, there is no Bible, there is meaning or purpose to anything at all, without the incredible center of Christianity, Jesus Christ.  

I've been struggling a bit lately, as we all do, and this sermon series has been powerfully edifying to my faith.  It's very easy to drift off into the Old Testament, doctrinal issues, Armenian vs. Calvin, and issues surrounding the Christian faith.  

Be cautious in your own walk, that Jesus Christ is always at the very center.  We hear about the cross of Jesus Christ so often in our lives that it becomes easy to just pass it over.  It's been spoken and re-spoken so many times to us, that we begin to lose touch with the power and meaning of it.  Just like with extremely popular Bible verses like John 3:16, I'll start to avoid those popular verses because I'm just so tired of hearing them over and over.  

Constantly in my walk as a Christian I want to be finding ways to rediscover the power and beauty of the cross of Jesus Christ.  I want to be falling deeper and deeper in love with my glorious Savior.  I'm not special, I'm just some blogger, seminary student at best.  I can very easily fall off track.  But a good sermon series like this can do a lot to strengthen the core of my belief system, which is Jesus Christ.

The way Jesus lived is a constant inspiration.  The way Jesus died provides a powerful example for me to aspire to.  His sovereignty as he lives in heaven on the throne at this very moment is a constant imputing into my life of authority, leadership, correction, and most often, powerful encouragement. 

This is a sermon series by Mark Driscoll one of my heroes of faith.  I've decided this is a sermon series I'll regularly return to, in order to always be reminding myself of the center piece of my personal redemption.  The man Christ Jesus is my brother, my savior, my best friend, and my God.  Nothing can ever change that, I was saved at the moment I believed in him.  No demon or fool can take Jesus Christ away from me, and I know they will try.  But they can't.  

Before you delve into these wonderful sermons, be aware that Pastor Mark Driscoll is exceedingly crass, lewd, and direct.  He doesn't hold back, and he explains things exactly as they are.  Before we as moderate Christians jump on his back about his abrupt, sarcastic, and intense mode of preaching the gospel, let's consider who he preaches to.  He communicates the gospel to young men in their 20s in the west coast city of Seattle, Washington.  Very simply Mark Driscoll is engaging the culture and radically adapting the objective truth of scripture to the cultural practices and styles of communication in that area of the country.  This is absolutely Biblical.  At the Acts chapter 15 Jerusalem council, it was ruled that non-jews becoming Christians would not be forced to comply with the cultural practices of the Jewish faith.  This allowed the gospel to flow freely into the Greek world and beyond.  Missionaries in foreign lands, in China, India, and other parts of the world take the truth of scripture, separate it from the traditional religious practices of western culture, and help new people groups apply it to their indigenous cultures.  This is a practice the modern Christian church in the United States needs to adopt, because when we cling to our traditional American ways of communicating the gospel, we do so at the expense of younger generations.  We can't be surprised when using that approach, that the entire culture begins to turn radically against Christianity.  Relevance, relevance.

Jesus Christ is Lord.  This is an apologetically strong sermon series, often addressing issues and sourcing outside direct reference to Bible verses, in order to edify and build up possible new believers in the coherence, historical accuracy, philosophical superiority, and incredible love within the life, death, resurrection, and current heavenly ministry of Jesus Christ, who lives now in heaven and works in the lives of billions of believers today.  

Enjoy!

10 Encouragements to every 1 Rebuke

1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV)  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

I'm quite stunned by the mud slinging that goes on within the United States Evangelical movement.  It runs like a cancer within Christianity.  Everyone, from the very top leadership to the lower echelons, bloggers, and local congregations... well, it seems to be a problem on all levels.  Whether on blogs, on Youtube, at my home church, or talking to friends.. someone always has something negative to say about a leader, or a movement, or a theological issue.  And very often nothing to say if they think that person is doing a good job.

Why is it that we can only say something if it's negative?  Is rebuking the only language the church may speak to and regarding one another?

It's quite upsetting to see such a petty problem.  My first reaction is to think my goodness, can we grow up?  Have we forgotten our primary purpose of knowing Jesus Christ and making him known?   

John MacArthur is one of the worst with this, I've seen him come at Mark Driscoll calling for his resignation.  He did the same thing to Rick Warren.  I see an incredible amount of fire come at just Driscoll and Warren.  It's systemic.  I was at a presentation at a local church a few months ago watching an open air preacher call apologetics worthless.  I've seen apologists mock presuppositionalists.  At the Strange Fire conference cessationist calvinists mocked charismatics, and later on I saw Mark Driscoll show up at the conference to mock the cessationists.  John MacArthur called the NIV a heresy, while my text book for Inductive Bible Study said formal translations are not accurate.  I've seen John Piper interview Mark Driscoll, Francis Chan, and Rick Warren, and find very little wrong theologically in their views.  

What about unity within the body of Christ?

I love John MacArthur, he is one of the greatest expository preachers the world has ever seen.
I love Mark Driscoll, his ministry to guys in their twenties is incredible.
I love Rick Warren, he's attacking some the biggest issues our planet faces.

I love the body of Christ, because you're my family.  And not because that's what I'm suppose to say, or it's kinda true because the Bible says it, or even that it's definitely true but I don't actually feel it, it's that it's completely true, and I do feel it.  You are my family, actually, and truly, if you're a Christian.  That is the happy fact. 

My spiritual gifts are "showing mercy" and "exhortation" so maybe I'm just better at picking out the things to love in people.  But how can we be missing this one? 

Show love.  Show more love.  Any given situation, love.  And more love. 

Romans 16:17-18 (ESV) I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.

Fortunately my friends, my family, this is not a difficult problem to solve within Christianity.  Start blogging about unity!  Project a positive mindset into the body, and a lot of the divides can be healed.  It's as simple as people swallowing their pride and choosing to magnify the good about others, rather than focus on the bad. 

We can learn to love anyone.  And Jesus said love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.  Christianity in the United States is under organized attack, vicious attack daily in the colleges, in the classrooms, at the bars, the clubs, on the internet, and in people's homes.  We don't have the luxury of going to war with each other every time we find a disagreement in theology.  If we both love Jesus Christ and match our truth from the Bible, we're on the same team!

The problem here is that we're forgetting to love one another.  We're favoring doctrinal disagreements and failing to love.  May I share chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians?

1 Corinthians 13 (NLT)

13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;^[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages^[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Jesus said Love God and love your neighbors. Let's do that.  Blog about unity.  Christianity is under enough fire without various sects within Protestantism taking pot shots at one another.  Unity, unity. 

I suggest a new rule, for every 1 time you rebuke another Christian brother or sister, you must first encourage 10 others.  Encouragement is sorely lacking in the body today, and especially in the pulpit.  Too many are rebuking, too few encouraging.  So show your family some encouragement.  

Hebrews 10:23-25 (ESV) Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The Paradox of Wisdom in Christianity

Proverbs 30:1-4 (NLT) I am weary, O God;
    I am weary and worn out, O God.^[b]
2 I am too stupid to be human,
    and I lack common sense.
³ I have not mastered human wisdom,
    nor do I know the Holy One.

⁴ Who but God goes up to heaven and comes back down?
    Who holds the wind in his fists?
Who wraps up the oceans in his cloak?
    Who has created the whole wide world?
What is his name—and his son’s name?
    Tell me if you know!

And Proverb 12:1 says "To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction."  What is the assumption when considering wisdom, truth, and enlightenment?  Whether it's western or eastern thinking, we're talking about gathering knowledge, discovering secret truth, compiling information and obtaining it. 

But the sum truth I gathered under the assumption of gathering and self-introspective discovery did not stand as much as a crippled molding wobbly tent of dung compared to the truth path of trust in Jesus Christ.  

The Lord God towers tens of thousands of stories taller than the foolish wisdom of the world.  Compare Bukowski to Chesterton.  Compare Hunter S. Thompson to C.S. Lewis.  Those writers inspired by the word of God and the Holy Spirit which leads into all truth, compared to the writers who are inspired by misery and illicit drugs... well, there is no comparison.  

C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton would not have been able to reach the heights of truth and wisdom they had, without at first coming humbly to the feet of Jesus Christ and welcoming him into their hearts.  

I made that same choice to stumble to my knees and call upon the Lord Jesus Christ.  I did not come to that conclusion by work of reason or wisdom, but by work of drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, sleep deprivation, and utter inexhaustible misery.  When I called upon the Lord Jesus, it was the sort of inward scream for help that shutters through your own being, through your whole self, an unconditional surrender.  The sensation of the desperate cry for help must've been so sincere, so singly empty of conditional clauses that it rang true to the very throne of God himself.  

I recall the moment quite clearly.  Not so much what I was saying, but how it felt.  And relief of at least, finally, I can call on the name of the Lord.  But I would not have known whose name to call on had it not been for God the Father.  He reminded me whose name I ought to speak at that moment.  Not "save me krishna"  or "save me godish whoever"  but "Please save me Lord Jesus Christ!"

That is the beginning of actual wisdom.  C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”  How incredibly true that statement is.  

As a human being, young especially, the last thing I wanted to do was admit that I needed anybody elses help!  I wanted to do it myself.  I wanted to prove my own self sufficiency.  That has got to be a product of sin nailed to my heart.  I am of the line of Adam, as we all are.  We are all born with the sin nature on ourselves.  In retrospect I can see it's work so incredibly.  Nothing in the very untrained human desires in myself told me that I was made by and for God.  Yet.. there was something there.  Something I didn't want to believe.  I tried to hide it, to lay a pile of papers and scientific conclusions on top of that truth.  In the end it was totally buried.  But desperate misery uncovered it again.

Total admission of need for God in my life, saved my life.  I would not have come to this conclusion on my own.  Everything in the world told me to trust nothing and no one.  And upon extended inspection of the elements of culture and society, and especially government and economics, that conclusion is absolutely justified.  If I were to trust even half of the institutions,businesses, and people I meet in this world I would be in for some serious hurt.  But I learned there was one incredible exception to that conclusion, I must place absolutely trust in the Lord God of the Bible. 

It is most paradoxical.  But I've learned to love the paradoxes in the Bible.  I've also learned to love the paradoxes of 12 step recovery.  The two agree on most everything.  Of course my bottom line source for truth in the Bible.  Always remember that.  We test what is true by the word of God.  Experience is very important, but always test that experience by scripture.

For me, I always wanted to be the rebel fighting the righteous cause.  Just like Luke Skywalker leading the rebellion against the evil empire.  Or Morpheus, or Neo, fighting for the survival of the human race against the evil machines.  I wanted to be special.  The irony here is that I wanted to be a rebel, and I thought I was a part of the sort of "rebel alliance" of US politics, which is kind of a rough conglomeration of Libertarians, Anonymous Hacktivists, Occupiers, Tea Partiers, and the remnants of the anti-war left.  Maybe I was closer than I thought.  I will say this, that I see a closer representation of Christ in the works of Ron Paul, Julian Assange, and Justin Amash than I've ever seen in the works of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Al Gore, or Sarah Palin. 

But I had believed the most deceitful propaganda.  The quiet propaganda against Christianity.  Don't underestimate our enemy, Satan, or his spiritual forces.  He has it stacked so well that if I tell anyone that they're communing with demons, or that in the mainstream media and in Hollywood there is tons of demonic imagery and dark symbolism, they will immediately assume I'm a quack.  I'm not a quack, obviously.  I'm a Christian though.  And that's about as bad, when considering the social views today.

The generalizations are generally thus, Jesus Christ was a great teacher but he wasn't the son of God.

Organized religion has led to so much blood shed it shouldn't exist at all.

Christians are hypocrites.

All Priests are molesters.

 Science has disproved God.

 The Bible is no longer relevant.

And so on and so forth.  But after inspection, none of those things hold up to be actually true.  

The beginning wisdom is paradoxically not a striving to know it independently, but an initial admission of total inability to know truth, followed by a declaration of the need for God, followed by the commitment to follow God and to live as Jesus Christ did on Earth.  More so than any other truth in the Bible, the method of life lived by Jesus is to be our guide to living.  Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, he loved his friends, he loved his enemies, he healed the sick, he gave hope to those who had none, he shined a light on the religiosity of the Pharisees, he humbly washed the feet of his disciples, and then willingly died on the cross for all the evils of the world, once for all time, for all mankind, reclaiming his life on the third day, and giving final instructions to his dearest friends.  There is no other life like it in history or beyond, there is no greater example for how to live, and no humbler a God than ours, who would come in person to wash his people clean, paving the way for their redemption.  We were lost, and of no merit to be redeemed, yet we were redeemed, once for all time by Him who loves us.

The Lord God then as our sovereign, our friend, our protector, and our comforter, leads us along the path of wisdom, unveiling secret after secret, and truth after truth.  What a wonderful thing, don't you see?

Jeremiah 33:2, 3 NIV "“This is what the Lord says, he who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it—the Lord is his name: ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’"

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
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