The Normal Christian Life

Amanda, Luke and I attended Providence Baptist Church today in Raleigh, NC, with our seminary friends Jake and Courtney Caylor from Gulf Shores, AL. Pastor David Horner had a wonderful message on "stepping it up" in our life of holiness, noting that our idea of the Normal Christian life is actually woefully subnormal.

I thought of Watchman Nee's classic, The Normal Christian Life, first published in 1957. The first paragraph gives us the intent of the whole book:

"What is the normal Christian life? We do well at the outset to ponder this question. The object of these studies is to show that it is something very different from the life of the average Christian. Indeed a consideration of the written Word of God -- of the Sermon on the Mount for example -- should lead us to ask whether such a life has ever in fact been lived upon the earth, save only by the Son of God himself. But in that last saving clause lies immediately the answer to our question."

Save only by the Son of God himself. Paul admonishes us in Colossians 3:1-4 to live the Christ life which is in us who have a relationship with Jesus Christ. May we learn to live a normal Christian life and not a subnormal one.