Transformed by...

There is more to Christian living than trying really hard to be good.

You probably know that.

But, do you know exactly what Christianity is about, other than trying hard to be good? Could you explain it to others? Could you teach it to your group?

Well, there is the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says to be (continually) filled with the Spirit, contrasting it to being drunk with wine. True enough. What else is there? Is it passively letting go and letting God have His way in our lives?

We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. We have to stop our stinking thinking. True enough. Brian Tracy and Anthony Robbins teach that as well. What else is there?

The Bible says to train yourself to be godly. The word is taken from the field of athletics. The idea is to break down godliness into individual parts and work on each part until it becomes an automatic habit. A tennis player must hit top spin forehands until he can do it in his sleep. When it comes game time, he doesn’t have time to think about how to hit a top spin forehand. Same thing with backhand. Same thing with a slice. Same thing with a volley, and serve, and drop shot and overhead. One the player has trained himself to do all these individual skills, he is ready to put the game together as a whole.

Similarly, Christians train themselves to be godly by working on gratitude. Then gentleness. Then faith, and love, and patience, and honesty and all the rest. When each of these pieces are in place, he is ready for Christian living—and not before. Train yourself to be godly. What else.

Well, as it turns out, there are about a dozen of these.  There are about a dozen teachings in scripture that tells us we are transformed by… Scripture teaches we are transformed by…

• Truth
• Training
• Habit
• Trusting
• Trying
• Worship
• Together
• Telling
• The Holy Spirit
• Testing
• Example
• God’s sovereign grace

Here is the tricky part—and it explains why Christian living is so hard for so many. (Jesus said His yoke is easy, but most experience it to be very hard.) You have to have a working knowledge of all twelve of these principles in order to live the Christian life. Let that sentence sink in. Most of us could not even list these principles, much less explain them.

But, here is the good news. I have just released a series of 13 lessons that go in depth into each of these principles. (One introductory lesson, and one lesson on each of the 12 principles.) If you are a member of Good Questions Lesson Subscription Service, you already have access to these lessons. If not, they will be available on Amazon soon.

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