Realigning My Lifestyle with Christ: How Should I Live?

There’s a way we ought to live if we understand our God-given identity and purpose. It’s dangerous to live anyhow after you’ve come to know who you are and why you are here, but often, we can fall into toxic habits and lifestyles due to ignorance or lack of intentionality. How then, should we live as Believers who are confident in their identities and assured in their purpose? Keep reading as we continue to explore this matter!

One of the most monumental scriptures in the Bible is Romans 12:1-2 because it gives a clear depiction of what the life of a true Christian entails – one of constant death and renewal.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” – Romans 12:1-2 NKJV

It’s our reasonable service to God to be a living sacrifice. This means you have to die. The you I’m referring to is the fleshy, rebellious, let me do what I want, how I want version of you. The you that isn’t submitted, enjoys sin, and hates everything righteous. The truth is that we’re being challenged in the day-to-day by our sinful nature, not the enemy alone. In fact, we are made to know this through scripture, “For the sinful nature has its desire which is opposed to the Spirit, and the [desire of the] Spirit opposes the sinful nature; for these [two, the sinful nature and the Spirit] are in direct opposition to each other [continually in conflict], so that you [as believers] do not [always] do whatever [good things] you want to do.” – Galatians 5:17 AMP. 

Sin is always before us. It’s easy to compromise righteousness for what we feel like. It’s often our feelings that give us the most trouble anyway! You cannot live life according to how you feel. You must live according to your convictions!

Romans 12:1-2 is even clearer in The Message translation which says, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” 

Our life must be an offering before the Lord. Paul, when beginning His many letters in the Bible, would refer to himself as a bondservant or slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. The moment we became Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we too took on the roles of bondservants and slaves. We can’t refer to God as Lord or Master if we restrain His rights to Lord or Master over us. It’s our job to live submitted lives. Our response to the Lord must always be, God whatever you want, however you want, wherever you want, whoever you want – literally, the Lord’s will alone and only our obedience.

Now, the question we are exploring is: How do I offer my life before the Lord? Well, there are a few things I found that we can do that embrace the proper Christian lifestyle. 

Before I continue, I do want to highlight that I believe we are living in a very rebellious generation. Frequently, our generation goes against the grain and normalities of the generation prior simply because they don’t like the confines of tradition or rules and regulations. But here’s the thing – there’s not everything that generations prior has done that we can do away with. Many of the things our generation is coming up against are the very things that are paramount to our faith. If you’d like to be an average Christian, that doesn’t witness the supernatural manifestations of God on Earth, I’m sure you can get away with not doing many of the things I’m about to list and of course, make it to Heaven. However, there’s so much more to God! The Lord desires to impose His super on our natural, but this can only happen when we walk in obedience and righteousness. So, if you’re willing to embark on the narrow path that leads to unusual manifestations of God in your everyday life, keep reading!

Keys for Offering Your Life Before the Lord

1. Practice Repentance

Practice is the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it, according to Google. It’s easy as a Christian to bypass the importance of repentance due to familiarity. Repentance has become a mere ritual with no heart, intensity, or passion. But here’s the truth – outside of the Blood that was shed on the Cross, we are guilty. Isaiah 64:6 says our “righteous acts” are like filthy rags. We all fall short of the glory of God, yet God is merciful! Practice repentance by prioritizing confession and heart transformation daily. Mere confession without engaging your heart, or making an effort to change your behavior is useless. It’s like saying sorry for hurting someone, and in the same breath, hurting them again. Repentance is turning away from your evil actions and choosing to walk down the right path instead. 

How often do you repent of your sins? Beyond your sins, how often do you repent of your weights? In 1 Corinthians 10:23 AMP, it says, “All things are lawful [that is, morally legitimate, permissible], but not all things are beneficial or advantageous. All things are lawful, but not all things are constructive [to character] and edifying [to spiritual life].” What things have you been engaging in that are technically right, but lacking significant benefit or edification for your Christian life? These things are worthy of repentance also, which leads me to the second key…

2. Remain Vigilant 

Vigilance requires keen attentiveness and awareness of danger to avoid it. If we’re being honest, there are a lot of sins or situations that we’ve fallen victim to simply because we weren’t aware. For example, you end up heartbroken after a bad relationship, but in the first place, it was never God’s will for you to be with that person. But instead of watching and praying concerning the person and relationship in the beginning, you allowed how the person presented and how promising they seemed to fool you. Things like “he goes to church,” and “my friends think he’s a nice guy,” have become the foundations on which you decided to enter into this relationship. But God never gave His stamp of approval. Of course, this is only an example, but we can often do this when it comes to many decisions or things like going to a specific school, entering a particular friendship, starting a new business, or beginning a new job.

Don’t just watch for the good. Be aware of the bad that appears good too! The thing is that God isn’t the only one who offers things that look good. Satan also has a way of using his tactics to offer good-looking things to us. The difference is His only looks good, but God’s ARE good. Remain vigilant concerning the people, things, and happenings in your life. Has something been off lately? Have you noticed any ungodly cycles or trends occurring with you, your family, or anything concerning you? Are there specific areas of your life that feel unusually challenging to conquer or elevate? 

3. Keep Your Customs

These are the traditions we can sometimes deem unimportant and want to do away with. Consistency breeds power, and power produces movements. As Christians, we carry power, but our power can remain dormant or inactive due to our inconsistency. Certain foundational principles of our faith allow us to continually be renewed and remain living sacrifices as Romans 12 talks about and they are as follows: prayer, fasting, Bible study, fellowship, and service. These are of course only a few of the many practices that can remain beneficial to our faith’s development, but these five are definitely at the top of the life of Christian customs. 

Prayer is communication with God. Intimacy with God is bred through prayer. 

Fasting is the practice of turning away from food (and often other elements like social media, TV, etc.) to seek God without distractions and gain insight and clarity from the Lord. Fasting without prayer is starving. If you decide to fast but don’t implement the discipline of prayer, your fast is meaningless. The Holy Spirit leads fasts and they can be done alone, with a group of people, or by a church congregation. 

Bible Study is putting in the intentional time and effort to read, understand, and dissect the Word of God. Through the Bible, we are transformed and renewed. No one can be transformed by the various other customs without the backing of the Bible. Bible Study performs deliverance because the Word of God is alive, and as we read God’s Word, we are transformed to think, speak, act, and become like Him. 

Fellowship is simply communing with other like-minded people, in particular, attending church services and events regularly and breaking bread with your church community. Fellowship is so important in strengthening our faith, in addition to experiencing healing, restoration, and environments of vulnerability. 

Service is using your gifts and talents to glorify God and edify His House. Serving is a serious matter, and God honors servants. Service brings blessings, breakthroughs, and abundance. There’s no way to serve in the House of the Lord and be put to shame! 

In keeping customs, your life will be a complete offering to God, shaped by His Word. When we are consistent and intentional in keeping our customs, God not only speaks but He moves. The move of God becomes fluid in our lives because our consistency deems us trustworthy!

4. Avoid Distractions

Craig Groeschel once said, “The devil doesn’t need to destroy you if he can distract you.” I couldn’t agree with this quote more because if the devil distracts you, then you’ll destroy yourself. Distractions steal our focus away from our identity and purpose. Distractions come swiftly and often can look like a “good thing.” You can get distracted by good relationships, a good job, a good commitment, or even your service that’s unto God. We can get distracted doing good things and miss out on the main thing God wants for us at a particular time or in a specific season. 

Avoiding distractions can practically look like planning your days according to the priorities God has placed on your heart in a season. Avoiding distractions can also look like scheduling meetings, outings with friends and family, and major events you have to attend, to avoid undue stress and unnecessary spontaneity. Avoiding distractions can also look like saying no. To do what God called you to do, and obey Him ON TIME, you will need to draw a boundary with your no’s and protect your yes’s. Funny enough, the hardest no to give is the no to yourself. You may have to tell yourself no in this season for something you’d like to have or do, to make for a better tomorrow or simply keep on your path of obedience. 

Avoiding distractions requires self-awareness, self-discipline, and the Holy Spirit. The greatest thing we can do is allow the Holy Spirit to lead us EVERY DAY, and continue to consult Him on every decision we make, big and small. The Holy Spirit is all-knowing and will always lead us according to God’s will, so there’s no room for error when following Him – even when we don’t understand where exactly He’s taking us!

5. Protect Your Passions

Whenever I think about my passions and dreams, the scripture that comes to mind is Ecclesiastes 3:11 which says that God has planted eternity in the human heart. This scripture is special to me because it also regards the beautiful timing of God. As we continue to live with God, there is a beauty unveiled as He adorns our lives His way, and often it starts at one specific point – Passion. All of us have been given passions by God for specific things that He too cares about. My passion is spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and empowering others to become who God ordained them to be through written and spoken word. Your passion however may be Christian songwriting that glorifies God and uplifts Believers, teaching children and raising them in the ways of God, or counseling broken souls and bringing them to a place of God’s restoration. We all have different passions, and you can have more than one passion. 

In going back to the latest blog, our purpose in living a life that glorifies God is the same, but it will manifest itself in different ways. But the truth remains, God has planted something in your heart that can change the world and bring Him glory. And with that being said, it’s YOUR JOB to protect it. Every other key listed above is a method of protecting your passions. Another I’d like to add is to cultivate your passion every day. This means getting better at the gift, talent, or passion God has given you. If fulfilling your passion requires education, go to school. If your passion requires money, build habits of saving, and learn about funding. If your passions require help, start practicing communication with others to buy into your vision. Whatever means are required for your passion to manifest and maximize, do it so that you can please the Lord and live a fulfilled life!

The enemy won’t always destroy your passion, sometimes He’ll strategically diminish and discourage it. All of a sudden, the very thing God planted in you to do, others are speaking against, and telling you it won’t work. There are people around you, even those you love, who may not understand your passion, and sometimes, unbeknownst to them, are employed by the enemy to diminish your passion. Be careful who you tell what God told you. As you begin to walk on this path of holiness, watch whom you give your ears to and be mindful of what you allow your eyes to see. Passion can be uprooted with one word or one sight if not properly guarded and protected. With that being said, PROTECT YOUR PASSIONS AT ALL COST!

Work Out Your Own Salvation

These are only a few keys for offering your life before the Lord, but each one listed above keeps us as His bondservants. Our life is of course spiritual, but wisdom is required to operate as an effective and righteous Christian. You cannot live life by default, you must live it by design. And in designing your life, it’s up to you to prioritize what’s important and what isn’t. God has supplied us with abundant grace and new mercies every morning, but there is a way we OUGHT to live. Don’t allow yourself to live on the cusp of lukewarm Christianity. Keep the fire on your altar burning, and do everything in your power to prevent anyone or anything from diminishing your fire. Have a relentless approach towards the things of God – not giving in and not giving up. 

There are two scriptures I’d like to leave you with, to encourage, uplift and guide you as you continue in your walk with God: 

“So then, my dear ones, just as you have always obeyed [my instructions with enthusiasm], not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ].” – Philippians 2:12 AMP

“Fight the good fight of the faith [in the conflict with evil]; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and [for which] you made the good confession [of faith] in the presence of many witnesses.” – 1 Timothy 6:12 AMP