Why Is It Difficult To Be A Christian

Welcome to episode 81, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 81. I want to continue our conversation. We talked about having a different spirit the last 3 episodes, and we talked about Caleb and Joshua who had the different spirit, and that it's 1 in 6, or roughly 20% of the people— and these are Christians— that have a different spirit about them. And if you do not have a different spirit, or if you've ever struggled, or why have you ever thought to yourself Why is the Christian life so difficult, or why is it difficult? I want to encourage you that God knew exactly what was going to happen. God knows that this is a battle, that life is a battle and it's fought to the death. We are here, they are not of this world. Jesus is the King of Kings and he is the Lord of Lords, but kings conquer, kings take dominion. Kings go out and battle. In fact, when David was the king, he got into trouble when he wasn't battling. And I think maybe part of our problem is, is that we've gotten kind of used to, or we've gotten okay with not going out, or thinking that, you know, it's going to be okay, or we can take a day off, or we can take a year off, or this COVID's got me shut down, locked down. We cannot take ourselves out of the battle. Because bad things happen, and we're going to talk about why it's so difficult. But God— Jesus himself, and we talked about it in a previous episode, and I'll link to that in the show notes, but it's in Matthew 7:13-14. Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. So we got narrow and few, and I want you just to think narrow and few. And if we've got an 80/20 rule, but Jesus even said in the same chapter in 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done all wonders in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.' Now that is a chilling scripture, and I don't mean to be, be Debbie Downer here, but we saw in the previous 3 episodes that the children of Israel, 80% of them gave a bad report. And Jesus, in his own words right here, say many Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way. If you've ever wondered why life is difficult, a Christian life or life in general, it's that there's 3 enemies that we have to be reminded of, and I want to remind you of them in this episode. If you don't realize there's a problem, how do you fix it? And I, I mean, I guess that's AA 101, you know, you gotta admit that there's a problem before you could you know, come against it. But you need to make sure that you're getting in. I mean, eternity is forever, and this is not anything that you should need to take for granted. I mean, you need to get— difficult is the way— you need to stay in the word, and you need to continue to seek after his face and to be looking. We need to continue to live like Jesus is one day closer today than he was yesterday. And I, you know, kind of tongue-in-cheek, usually when I'm talking to people, I, you know, I'll just say, just to have a conversation so I'm not again Debbie Downer, I just say, man, I don't know why he didn't come yesterday. I mean, Jesus missed a great day yesterday to come. But my point is, you know, he could come any day now. And I want to just make sure, if you're listening to this, that you're part of the 20%. And the wide and narrow. And I'm not sure that it's talking about the wide and narrow here. I think it's talking about the people, the children of God, or the people that call themselves Christians. I think the Barna survey— and I like him because, or that group, because they go and survey a lot of Christians and they ask a lot of questions— but I think in 2014 the survey said that 30% were evangelical or based Christians by, you know, by the acts and thought that faith in the name, and if you declare his name, you'll be saved. You know, instead of just saying, I'm a Christian, and they say, well, you know, what, what makes you say that? Well, I do good things, or I, I know God loves me, that kind of thing. I don't know that that's going to get you into heaven, is knowing that God loves you and knowing that you're his favorite. You are his favorite, I can tell you that, whether you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior or not. God loves you. God is so fired up with you. He— you are his favorite, but you have to do one thing. You have to die to self. You have to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You have to declare with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Christ from the dead. Then you're going to be saved. You got it. But in order to get into that position, you have to humble yourself, because remember, God resists the proud. But gives grace to the humble. So if you've ever— if you haven't truly humbled yourself before God and died to self, then, you know, you just need to take an inventory, because eternity is forever. And this scripture in Matthew 21, where Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father. And then in 22, many Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? This sounds a lot to me like that's the church. And if we go back to the previous 3 episodes about the, the different spirit, these were all in the— these were all church people and leaders and all of that, but 80% of them died in the wilderness because they did not accept the promise of God. You have to accept, and you've got to internalize that. You've got to have it in your heart and in your mind. And I want to go take one more step. Again, why it's so difficult— I've talked in the previous episode, and I'm, again, I'm going to link to that, but where we talked about where we're all different parts of the same body, that makes it difficult when you try to relate to somebody. You know, if you're a little toe in the example that I used, I'm a little toe and I'm screaming balance or or walking or running. And if you're an eye, you're talking about vision. Or if you're a mouth, you're communicating. And a foot don't know nothing about communicating. You know, a toe, a little toe is there to fill out the shoe and to balance. You know, I mean, it's so the, the communication gap. And sometimes you would think that, you know, maybe this person isn't a Christian. I, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen people that you kind of put your eyebrow up. And we're told not to judge people, I understand all that. But there's sometimes when you see people and you wonder, God, are those people saved? I mean, they're, they're saying all the right stuff, but boy, they, they look funny. And don't look at me like that, but you kind of do a little inventory every now and then. And I'm told not to judge, and I understand. I'm not judging, I'm just saying things that are going on in my mind sometimes where I wonder that. And then it's— then I think, well, it's not my part, that's their part., and if a conversation arises and I can visit with them a minute, then I'll ask them questions and I'll try to give them the gospel message as best I can. I may not be able to sow anything into them other than just throw a little seed on the ground or water the seed that's already been planted in their heart. So that's kind of what I try to do. I honestly try hard not to play God. I just pray that God will be God and let me be me, and I just go through life trying to be a representative as best I can, a reflection of his glory, and not try to say that I'm the carrier of the glory. I mean, I, I know I have the Holy Spirit in me, but it's about reflecting God's Spirit and God's glory. So I want to talk about the three again, the difficult. We got— we're all different parts of the same body, we're getting here at a different time, we're not all saved on the same day, and we're not all at the same growth. I was saved 28 years ago. If you were saved 28 days ago, we're probably not going to be— we can't— there's no way you can have the same root system that I've got down. And if you were saved 15 years ago and you just immersed yourself into the word and you got clean, as clean as you could possibly get, and just dove in hook, line, and sinker— I, I can tell you, over my 28 years, I've been in and not in and out of Christianity, but distracted and, you know, more in and then sometimes more out. I mean, I've kind of— I'm a sheep. We all lose our way sometimes. So, you know, God's had to kind of corral me back or call me back, you know. And I, and I'm not saying that I've wandered off the beaten path, but I'm just saying that we make mistakes, we sin, we screw up, and God's got to kind of whistle and say, hey, get back over here. So anyway, I hope that helps. But we're all a different spot. That's another reason why it's difficult. The four foundations. Remember I talked about us all being different? You know, we got different talents and different things that draw us of those four foundations: the lion, the ox, and the eagle, and the man. You know, we all four have, you know, we, we have different things that, you know, that fires up different strengths. We also have three different enemies. And one of the things that I just find fascinating is Over 50% of Christians believe that Satan isn't— is not a real being, that he's an entity. I mean, I'm thinking that that may be who Jesus talking to. If you think Satan is not a real being, then you've got to pick and choose parts of this Bible you don't believe, because the Bible clearly states Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, and it didn't say that he was tempted by a concept. Satan took him up on the mountain, and Satan did these things, and Satan spoke to him, and Satan made Adam and Eve fall. Satan is a real being, and if you don't believe that, you need to recheck your Bible. But we also have three enemies, three things that fight against us, and the first one is found in John 10:10. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. That is Jesus in the Gospel of John 10:10 talking about the thief, and he's talking about Satan. He is one of our enemies. He is somebody that we have to battle and somebody we have to fight. And in, in your mind, you know, the battle is in your mind sometimes. And what you're fighting is you have your thoughts, Satan throws thoughts in there, and God will put thoughts in, and the word of God. And the only thing that will trump— like, your thoughts are probably the lowest of the low, and then if Satan comes in and puts a thought in and anchors it on something, then that temptation or anything like that, it is— you cannot fight Satan's temptations without the word of God. Jesus did. If you look at Matthew 4 where Jesus said, 'It is written,' when Satan starts fighting you, you have to bring the word of God. You can't bring your own words, and you can't do it in your own strength. You have to bring the word of God. And that's reason number 27 why I say you need to be in the word. The second thing is that We're fighting the world or the world's way of doing things. And we talked about the kingdom of God is seedtime, harvest. In 1 John 2:15-17, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. So that's our second. That's not necessarily Satan, that's like the world's way of doing things. And, and you know how it gets so fast-paced and everything, you got to Google everything and everything's YouTube. And I'm not against that, but that's the world system. And if you fall in love with that system instead of God's kingdom, that's a distraction, that's an enemy. And the last one is your flesh. I'm talking about your— the flesh man. There's spirit, soul, and body. This is your body or the And in 1 Corinthians 2:14, but the natural man does not receive things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. And this is your, your spirit man, or the Spirit of God, or the Word of God. That's why when people say it's so difficult when you read the Bible, well, you're— it's your spirit man that's getting fed. You don't go too many days without feeding your belly, but you go a long time sometimes maybe without feeding your spirit man. And this is two separate entities, and they're always at enmity against God. I mean, they're never going to get along, these two— your body and your spirit. That's why your body is going to die and going to be buried in the ground, and we're going to call it like a seed. And up from the ground one day is going to come a totally new body. And then Romans 8:11, because the— or I'm sorry, Romans 8:7, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Those are the 3 battles. And this is going a lot longer than I wanted, but it— there's a lot in this. But you've got 3 enemies. You got— it's not always— say, you're not always battling Satan. Sometimes you're battling the world system, and sometimes you're just battling your flesh. When you're hungry, this body is not ever gonna, gonna fall in line with the spirit. Shut this off because I've been talking a long time and I know I tried to keep it for 10 minutes. There's no way this one's going to be 10, and I was pretty sure of that. But I just want to pray for you. God, I pray that their understanding will be opened. Lord, you've told us that all we have to do— wisdom— all we got to do is ask for it and you will gladly give it to us. God, I pray that you would give the person listening to this episode wisdom, Lord, on how to apply this to his life. And that the— what we read in Matthew 7:21-24, I believe, that is a sobering word from you, your mouth, Jesus, that not everyone who calls you Lord is going to enter into heaven. And those are church people. I didn't even mention that, Lord, but those are people that were casting out demons and doing, doing miracles in in your name, and you did not allow them to enter. God, I pray in Jesus' name that you would just quicken in our spirit what we need. If there's something that we needed to do, Lord, help us to do it. We want to make eternity with you forever. Lord, we thank you, we love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this episode, you fanatic, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

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