Vital Signs

How can you be a vital Christian? How can you make your church a vibrant church?

• Join: Become a member. Some may ask, “Can’t I do everything just as well without joining?” The Christian life is all about covenant relationships. It begins with a covenant relationship with God, and follows with a covenant relationship with God’s people. If you refuse to covenant with God’s people your life will always lack, as will the life of the church you attend and the people around you. Admitted it may vary in degrees. The illustration of marriage may help one to understand. Would my relationship with my wife be as strong if we did not covenant in marriage? The commitment, the vows, the security all strengthen the strong love relationship. Let Christ and his bride know you are committed to him and to them
• Love the Lord your God with your all: This is for your sake and for the sake of others. Your holiness and obedience directly impacts your life and the lives of others. Sticking with the illustration of marriage, let us look at the breaking of that covenant, divorce. I am learning more and more that no matter the reason for the divorce, this impacts more than just the two people in the marriage. It has ramifications on the children, the parents, the friends, the coworkers, and the list goes on. So too when you break in your obedience to God it affects you, but also has an impact on Christ and his church, your family, your friends, and even your neighbors and enemies.
• Love one another: This command may need to be broken down to different levels for our culture. Begin by loving the people God has placed closest to you, those in your local church. This is often the real test of this command. In terms of church universal, yes we love all Christians. However, it is often easier to love someone that doesn’t care what you believe or how you act. Many nondenominational atmospheres create such an environment. It is fun loving and appears to be all accepting, but it is easy to be on the surface. When it comes to the local church we are called to care about what we believe and how we act, it is part of what we covenant to be committed to one another about. This is where the real rub often comes in. There is accountability and knowledge of one another. If you can love there, it is a real light of the gospel and demonstration of the bond of the Holy Spirit. Be committed first and foremost to those you have covenanted with, and let your love flow from there.
• Love your neighbor: You have to do all of the other things first, otherwise your love for your neighbor will only point them to yourself and not Christ. But if you are committed to God, and if you are committed to his people, let his love flow. Spread the good news that through Christ God can take a sinner and love them,and bring them into a people that loves them, and they can love back.

You can start all kinds of programs to build community and read all kinds of self help books on how to be a better Christian, but it really comes back to the basics. You must love God, you must love the people of God, and this all calls for commitment in one anothers lives.