The Way of Life in Christ

 DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

THE WAY OF LIFE IN CHRIST

1 Cor 4:14-17

14 I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. 15 Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me. 17 For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

NIV

Although these words are of a personal nature, being about Paul’s warning them, there are a few truths we should glean for our lives. Of course, we do not think it would be good to imitate another man, although Paul is telling them they should do just that. This could be due to the fact there were so many voices out there and some of the men speaking about Christ may have had wrong motives looking to forward their  own lives by gaining followers for themselves. Times have not changed in that regard for there are even more voices claiming to speak about Jesus, although if we were to discern correctly, through the power of the Spirit. We would see their motive is to improve their own lifestyle on the backs of, out of the wallets of,  naive Christians. There is a way of life in Christ Jesus, and this is why Paul suggests they intimate him for he lives his way of life in Christ we also must believe that Timothy does as well for Paul is sending him to remind them of this way in Christ. Once again, we are reminded that we need to live the way of life in Christ Jesus. Should we recount all the ways that are? It would be difficult to list all the teachings of Jesus, but there are three ways in Christ that stand out. First, is this life of love, for God first loved us even while we were still sinners. Jesus loved us so much that he went to the cross for us, to take away our sins so that we are forgiven once and for all. Who can separate us from the love of God? Therefore, we love Christ above all others, loving God with our whole being. This then translates into also loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, which means never doing them any harm, but putting them above ourselves. This may be one of the most challenging ways of living in Christ because we all have our own personal agendas or desires that we would like to be doing. So to put another’s desires ahead of our own may be more difficult than we want to admit. The second way of living in Christ is living with faith. We would have to believe that Paul was a great man of faith, and that is why he is admonishing them to imitate him. He is sold out to Jesus and lives by faith. There is a big difference between living by faith and having faith in Jesus. All believers have that faith for their salvation, but then who do we trust for our daily bread? There are times when we need to be reminded of how to live in Christ, and how our life should be in Christ. There is this third way of having a life in Christ, and that is living as freed from the law. Paul takes a lot about that in many of his letters, and so a life in Christ is not about living according to the law, or rules and regulations, or by our good deeds, for all of those take us back to life under the works contract of the old covenant. Living in Christ is a life under the new covenant of the grace of God. Living the way of Christ is not about how much we do, but how much faith we have to trust him for everything in our lives. Does that mean we do not serve him? Absolutely not! We serve him out of our love for him and through our faith in him. Let us simply live the way of life in Christ.