FOOD FOR TEENS: The Simplicity That Is In Christ

Do you know that Christianity is the easiest way of life as long as earth and man is concerned? Any other kind of living is certainly very stressful and difficult. Job 14:1, “Man born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Everybody born into this world born of a woman is expected to struggle through life because the elements of this world is supposed to work against him, this because the ground has been cursed by God to resist man and his seed (Gen 3:17) due to the sin of Adam in the garden. But do you also know that the only way to avoid this life of toil and pain is Jesus? Anyone who comes to Jesus exchanges his life of toiling with the life of Jesus, Matthew 11:28-30, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 

What Jesus died and resurrected to give us is His life of ease and rest while He took your life of struggle, sorrows and sin with Him on the cross and was crucified for your sake. Hallelujah!!! Do you also know that majority of Christians even though they are born again still do not know how to walk in the newness of the life of Christ they have received? 

Do you know that this is because the devil has not changed his tricks? The same trick he used against Adam and eve in the Garden of Eden he still uses for the church of Jesus even today? 2nd Corinthians 11:3, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through subtlety, do your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Before Christ came there was the law, which was a life of struggle, I would liken this law to a cart (truck) pusher, to please his boss, he must push his cart from point A to point B every day and he always fell short of pleasing his boss because the task was too much for him, so his boss decided to get him a big lorry to convey all his goods from point A to point B (this I will liken to the grace which comes by Jesus Christ), but guess what the man still tries to do even now that he has been given a lorry, he tries to push the lorry the same way he pushed the truck and because of his inability to move his goods from point A to point B, he begins to feel that perhaps the lorry was a much bigger burden than the truck he once pushed. I know you might say how can someone be this foolish but I dare to tell you that this is how majority of Christians run the Christians race, which is why if you ask them if Christianity is easy they will tell you no, that its not meant to be easy but tough. 

Now lets go back to our illustration with the truck pusher. With the new truck came greater and more urgent responsibility. When Jesus preached His first sermon on the mount, you will see that He set a greater standard than even the law of Moses did, all these He did not because He thought we could fulfill it in the flesh, or by ourselves (Just like the truck pusher thinks he should push the lorry to his destination) but because now we can now place a demand on the spirit at work in us (which is the Spirit of Christ in us. Colossians 1:27b, “which is Christ in you the hope of glory”; This we will liken to the engine of that lorry. Now, you don’t try to take the pressure of the new life upon yourself but place it in the Spirit of Him that has the capacity to handle it. 

No wonder Paul said in Galatians 3:1-3, “O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit; are you now made perfect by the flesh?” To successfully move those goods with the lorry the first thing that man must do is to learn how to drive a lorry, the first thing even we as new creations in Christ must do is to learn of Jesus. How to live in this new life that we have received of Him, this can be achieved by continuous study and meditation of the word, consistent declaration of your new life in Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit through a consistent and strong prayer life, and as you do these, you begin to discover that grace and wisdom is more than sufficient to navigate life as a victor always. 

God bless you and see you next month.