Life. Faith. Jesus.

Guest article written by Daniel C. Wilson, keynote blogger at DesireSpiritualGrowth.com

There is no one so useless as the one who is lukewarm, content, comfortable, and safe behind a buffer of outer holiness.

Trying to remedy this by focusing on living “right” can feed this unusable stratagem. When we focus on living “right,” we inevitably miss out on a passionate pursuit of Christ.

Not only that, but our pursuit of right living empties our life of the spiritual power that ought to be filling our life.

What are you zealous for?

Do you lack zeal for prayer? For missions? For church? For Bible study?

If so, the problem is not a lack of information or focus on those activities.
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Today I review a book through BookSneeze, an extension of Thomas Nelson, The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns.

Richard Stearns is the president of World Vision U.S. In his book, he writes of his journey through faith and how the corporate world took a toll on it.

In his introduction, Stearns clearly defines the perspective at which he is approaching in his book:

“we are carriers of the gospel—the good news that was meant to change the world. Belief is not enough. Worship is not enough. Personal morality is not enough. And Christian community is not enough. . . . When we committed ourselves to following Christ, we also committed to living our lives in such a way that a watching world would catch a glimpse of God’s character—His love, justice, and mercy—through our words, actions, and behavior” (3).

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I have been known to do personal surveys from time to time.

Not the kind where you have a seat and fill out a form, but the kind where I would just ask specific questions to random people as I encounter them usually about the topic of faith.

Some of the surveys I have done have been

There have been more, but these are the ones I have done the most. I especially enjoy asking people why they wear a cross or what it means to be a Christian.

And honestly, people have been quite offended by these questions. I suppose it is because they had to give a reason for something they were unsure of.

But do we really understand what it means to be a Christian?
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Popular culture can have a tendency to wear on the Christian so as to fade his or her colorful faith that most evidences itself—I think—in his or her visible moral framework.

Moral Framework and Christian Identity

Please understand that I do not suggest here that moral framework alone constitutes for Christian identity, but a Christian identity necessitates a moral framework.

To be sure, Christians are convicted by and large through their moral framework. This moral framework comes from their Biblical worldview, which states that they are to behave though the filter of a transcendent moral framework because they are children of the transcendent God (Romans 8:12-14).

Being a child of God, though, does not come by observing a moral law, but instead by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit (John 1:12-13). What is then produced as a result of this regeneration is then the desire for moral obligation.

Therefore, their sense of awe and gratitude of their salvation gives them a continual reminder that their adoptions as sons and daughters of God had nothing to do with their own efforts or “goodness.”

This gratitude then drives them to the humility of their Savior (Phil. 2:7-9) and the desire to honor Him with their lives. Thus, a moral framework is realized and becomes visible to the world.
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