Living The Simple Life

SimplicityHave you ever heard someone complain that life is just too complicated to figure out? I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has said that to me. Even in my worst days, figuring out life was never hard for me. If life was complicated for me it was because I had done it to myself. Thankfully God made me a simple man; one who sees all of life in black and white, and right or wrong. I have always known that my decisions have affected my life. I didn’t always put that knowledge to good use and that is because I was lacking godly wisdom.

A simple life is one of the wonderful gifts we receive from the grace of God. In his second letter to the Corinthian church, Paul wrote:

    “For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.” (2 Corinthians 1:12)

How does one conduct him or herself “in the world in simplicity?” It actually means sincerity. It means we remove all the complicated things from our lives that the world tries to push on us and we turn to God and His Word:

    “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” (Psalm 116:5-7)

We have a gracious and merciful Lord who wants to give us rest and deal with us bountifully. So many people believe the Christian life is about doing without when the Word of God tells us otherwise. Oh but Bro Dave, the Bible can be so confusing when I read it. Stop trying to figure it out all at once and let God illuminate His Word to you through the Holy Spirit:

    “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130)

Too many times we approach the Bible as some great mystery to solve; others approach it to disprove its legitimacy. We must come humbly to God’s Word just as we must approach Him in humility:

    “Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me.” (Psalm 131:1)

That verse goes back to the point I made earlier: I complicate my life by concerning “myself with great matters” when God has not directed me too. When God wants me involved in something, it is never unclear. Now, the means and ends of what I am supposed to do be might be unclear at the beginning, but the fact God wants me to move is always clear. I need to have faith that God’s grace will be sufficient for the day to see me through.

Living the simple life may not be complicated, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it is easy. That is because we won’t let go of the sin we hold so dear, and it clings to us like an octopus. It takes the grace of God to die to self every day and to live for the Lord:

    “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8)

Allowing sin to die in our lives may be easy to understand, but not always easy to do. That is why Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave. He showed us the way and His grace carries us along, day-by-day:

    “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:5-11)

As a Christian, I do not have to live a life complicated by sin. My disobedience can be replaced with glad obedience unto His Word.

May that become each of our hearts’ desire.

Have a blessed weekend and please remember to go to church on Sunday.

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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Copyright © 2013 David Jeffers

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