Responsibilities of Being a Christian

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”   (Mark 12:30 NIV).

   These words were spoken by Jesus in response to the question, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (Mark 12:29)  Jesus’ answer was plain enough and definite enough to let us know that according to God, in the person on Jesus, the most important thing we can do is love God and love Him with all we’ve got.  When we do that, the other things He asks of us become easier to do.

   So how can we show our love for our Lord?  One obvious thing we can do is have conversations with Him—pray.  I have never once had God say when I called on Him, “Not now.  I’m busy.”   He is available all the time, as we might say, “24/7.”  We may think that prayer is a one-way conversation, or at least we act like it is.   When we pray, we need to give God time to speak.  I believe that He answers while I am praying, and if I don’t hear Him, it isn’t His fault.   Effective prayer is a skill that takes honing, and the best way to do that is to pray a lot.  I also believe that sometimes His answer is, “Not yet, you are not ready to understand or accept the answer.”  Sometimes His answer is almost immediate with an assurance in my heart that my Lord has heard my prayer and will act on it.

   If we don’t read the Word, we are not showing love for our God.  After all, He had numerous people over many, many years write 66 books that give us a written foundation of our faith.  This is another very important way to draw close to our Lord.   The Bible tells us how we came to be and how we will live through eternity.  It explains the one and only way to spend eternity with God in heaven—accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.  It has many intense personal stories that relate to our lives today as much as they did to the people when they were written.

   There is a song entitled, “Trust and Obey,” written by John Sammis and Daniel Towner after an evangelical meeting held  by Dwight Moody.  During testimony time a young man stood up and said, “I’m not sure, but I’m going to trust and I’m going to obey.”  That’s as good a description of another of our responsibilities of being a Christian.   Once I’ve read the Word and talked to my Lord in prayer, it is my responsibility to trust what I have read and heard, and if I trust it to be truth, then I must obey it.  Besides that, we know that our Lord has immeasurable love for us, and it is our joy to love Him back, and if we love Him, our desire will be to trust Him and obey Him.

    Along with all the blessings we have received from God, we have taken on responsibilities, but they are responsibilities that provide joy and peace in our lives as we take them on.