What kind of person are you?

What kind of person are you? Are you the kind of person YOU want to be, or the kind of person GOD wants you to be? All those who believe, should be able or responsible enough to live for Christ, to want him in their lives through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  But how many choose to believe, but it doesn’t change their lives or the behavior of their lives?  Peter was a man of conflict.  He loved Jesus, yet denied he even knew him, when it appeared that his life might be in danger for being associated with Jesus.  He would separate himself with Gentile believers, when some of his brothers came from Jerusalem, and ate separate from the Gentile believers.  Then in his letter to believers, he says that he will soon put aside this tent of a body, as Jesus has made it clear to him.  He was no longer afraid. He no longer spoke one way and lived another.  Now righteousness, because of the love of Jesus, was made complete in him. He ends his second letter, writing this: “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness as you wait for and earnestly desire the coming of the day of God. The heavens will be on fire and be dissolved because of it, and the elements will melt with the heat. But based on His promise, we wait for the new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell.”  2 Peter 3:11-13 So what kind of people ought we to be?  Holy and godly in a world that still strives to become more ungodly.  We ought to stand for righteousness, even when it’s not the popular thing to do, because it’s the right thing.   We ought to pray that God will take those little insects of sin that keep affecting our lives, and causing us to stumble, and start to renew our hearts toward him.  Let’s make every day, Sunday, in which we gather together, strengthening each other, in Christ.  Let’s make every day one in which we wake to the joy of being alive in Christ, and start each day in honor to him. Let’s make our lives consistent with Christ, instead of making Christ fit in the spare time that we give him.  What kind of person are we? We will never be perfect this side of eternity, but just as Paul writes to the Romans, “What then? Shall we continue to sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not!” ( Romans 6:15)  We are to desire to be righteous, with the righteousness of Christ, not our own.  When we incorporate Christianity into our worldly living, we get a watered down version of the truth.  But when we incorporate the world into our life of faith, we start to live by faith, walk by faith, and be a living example to those who live wholly in the world.  He then tells us in the end of the letter, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever, Amen. So what kind of person are we?  Not yet what we want to be, but we will keep praying for our lives to become more like him, and less like the world, as we look forward to the day of God, and speed its coming, keeping our focus on Christ and not the world.  Don’t get distracted my friends, keep the faith! keep the focus! Pastor Andy