I have a mountain of perfectly useable quotes about Christian living, but I wouldn’t dare approach the subject as a paper topic. I don’t have the experience. I don’t have a thesis. I’m eighteen years old, a sophomore who’d leave her college at the drop of a hat; I don’t have any white hairs of wisdom to scratch onto paper. 

But I’ve realised that if (as I claim) I write papers not to brag of my own knowledge, but truly approach study and writing as a means to grow in understanding and Christlikeness, I should never be afraid to tackle a difficult topic. Being young doesn’t mean I’m not living. It certainly doesn’t mean I shouldn’t live as best I can. So here I’ll lay forth, for myself more than for anyone else, some of the more practical and compelling thoughts I’ve come across. 

“The man whom we call an architect is not merely he who can readily discourse about buildings, but the man who has the skill to plan and erect them. So the man whom we call a Christian is not merely he who knows the duties of believers, and can fluently talk about them, but the man who, on the good foundation, builds up the structure of a human life. On this account we are constantly urged in Scripture to be practical as well as devout in our religion, and to maintain a sweet consistency between profession and practice; cultivating all that is true, pure, honest, lovely, and of good report; or, as the apostle expresses it, ‘Walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.’” So writes Robert MacDonald, and it is with this goal in mind that I approach this topic.  

Obviously, to keep this paper a reasonable length I can’t approach every angle of Christian living. (Church and fellowship, for example, will probably get their own paper at some point.) But I’ll begin with the proposition that everything in Christian living has its roots in obedience. Andrew Bonar wrote, “We have but one thing to do, we have but one Person to please. Has your life been thus simplified?” 

“The ultimate sign of membership in God’s covenant is neither circumcision nor possession of the Bible, but obedience ... obedience that is the evidence or the fruit of a life that has been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.”  

This obedience involves heavy labour and difficult work. After all, as J.C. Ryle points out, “A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.” Andrew Bonar adds that “The way to rise high in Christ’s kingdom is to serve much,” and that “Self-forgetting work is heavenly work.” To live Christianly is sacrificial. The Christian’s primary concern is not himself, but others. Consider James 1:27: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” This is not easy, pleasant work!  

As a college student, I find it easy to make excuses regarding this aspect of Christian living. I’m on a Christian campus. There aren’t exactly widows and orphans around. But this should manifest in joyful serving – obeying my mother without complaint when it’s my turn to fold the laundry. Driving my brother to work without rolling my eyes. Completing every homework assignment to the best of my ability, not skimming or procrastinating. These are small things, but they make up my life today. I should be committing their every aspect to God. 

But Bonar also describes the rest included in Christian living. “God fills our hands with work, but He does not overburden us. When we are overburdened it is time for us to stop.” Our God is gracious; He does not crush us with tasks and labours. But He does ask of us hard work and holy living. 

I’ve quoted this before, but Ryle’s words on holiness never go amiss. “I believe that far more is done for Christ’s kingdom by the holy living of believers than we are at all aware of. There is a reality about such living which makes men feel and obliges them to think. It carries a weight and an influence with it which nothing else can give. It makes religion beautiful and draws men to consider it, like a lighthouse seen afar off.” So then, holy and productive Christian living draws unbelievers to Christianity. And yet, “The best part of Christian work is that part which only God sees.” Where is the balance, then, between quiet private living, and shining a beacon of holiness for the nations to see? 

The answer is found in the same thing that allows us knowledge of God’s Word and will in the first place: private communion with him. One last Bonar quote: “No one will ever be holy who is not much alone with God.”  

Yes, works are essential; faith without works is dead. But it’s also true that there will be no works – there will be no faith! -- without private and continual communion with God. Prayer and Scripture reading (besides those in fellowship with other believers) are vital to Christian living. Christian living is impossible without understanding and continual returning thought of Christ. 

John G. Paton describes how central study was to his spiritual growth as a child. “The Shorter Catechism was gone through regularly, each answering the question asked, till the whole had been explained, and its foundation in Scripture shown by the proof-texts adduced. It has been an amazing thing to me, occasionally to meet with men who blamed this ‘catechising’ for giving them a distaste to religion; everyone in our circle thinks and feels exactly the opposite. It laid the solid rock-foundation of our religious life.” I’ve found the same thing when I take theology classes at college. Like Paul, I find that knowledge births doxology. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and how inscrutable His ways!” (Romans 11:33) 

Not only is the action of reading and studying crucial, so too is the manner in which these means of grace are approached. Ryle compels us to marvel continually at God’s communion with us. “Let us strive to use the old prayers, and sing the old hymns, and kneel at the old communion rail, and hear the old truths preached, with as much freshness and appetite as in the year we first believed.” There should never be a point at which God’s grace and presence should not be exciting!  

I’ve gone to an Anglican church a few times lately, and knelt at a real communion rail for the first time. I must say, it was a moving experience. I felt humbled and refreshed and my mind turned to holy things. But at my own church, we take communion standing, the same old way I’ve done it for years, and I for one find reverence and excitement difficult. I pray that, as Ryle says, I can approach this gift with freshness and appetite weekly, even when it seems stale.  

I close with a thought from R. M. McCheyne. “You must be content then to lean all your weight upon Christ. ... The leaning soul cries for continued grace.” This is a necessary reminder that none of these aspects of Christian living can be accomplished on our own. We are weak and broken. We may pray for the willpower to read the Bible consistently in the first place, let alone for the reverence and mindset to do it well! But it is comforting to know that none of this depends upon us – only upon our dependence upon God.