How to Live The Christian Life

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, not sits in the seat of the scornful.

Psalm 1:1

I recently came across this passage in Psalms and it caught my attention. I realized that it warns us of things do not do–walk, stand, sit. However, those are the three things that are inevitable for us as humans to do since we can’t fly. So what is the Bible trying to teach us?

After carefully reading Ephesians, I realized that it actually goes into detail as to what a Christian life looks like, and I want to summarize it using the same three words: sitting, walking, and standing.

• Sitting represents our position in Jesus Christ. It speaks of our belief systems.
• Walking represents our Christian practices and our behavior.
• Standing represents the posture that a Christian has in spiritual warfare, it’s our position for battle.

Ephesians says,

And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:6

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

Ephesians 4:1

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

Ephesians 6:11

The Three Positions of a Believer

1. Sitting

The Bible says you are seated in heavenly places. In Ephesians 2, Apostle Paul says that we have been raised with Christ. Jesus died for you and you died with Him on the cross. Not only did you die with Jesus, but you were also buried and raised with Him. That is why we need to get baptized because we identify with Jesus’s death by doing so.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

Ephesians goes one step further. It says our identity as a Christian is not hanging on the cross or just being raised with Jesus and walking in the newness of life. Our current identity with Jesus is being seated. 1 John 4:17 also says that “as He is, so are we in this world.” It doesn’t say as He was.

In the newness of life, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God right now, above principalities and powers. He is at the place of rest and the Bible says that you are not only identifying with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection but also in His being seated in the seat of power in heavenly places. This is why I believe we will go to Heaven because technically, we are already there. Christians don’t live for Heaven; they live out of Heaven. They are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That is who you are.

It is interesting that when God created Adam, God’s day of rest was the next day. Adam’s first day on earth was God’s day of rest. When God saves us, we step into Christ, and Christ is seated in power in the Heavenly places. We step into the finished works of Jesus.

Today, we live in a culture where you can identify yourself with something that is not factually true. There are people who identify themselves as particular animals for example. You can claim to identify yourself as whatever you want, but if it is not grounded in reality it is deception. As Christians, we don’t identify with Jesus to make it real; Jesus makes it real and gives us the opportunity to be identified with Him.

14 Benefits a Christian Has Through Christ

• We are blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3).
• We were chosen before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4).
• We have been redeemed through the blood (Ephesians 1:7).
• We have obtained an inheritance (Ephesians 1:11).
• Because we are seated, we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13).
• In Jesus, we have been made alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:5).
• We are saved by grace (Ephesians 2:5).
• Christians are raised up with Christ (Ephesians 2:6).
• Christians are seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).
• We have been created in Christ for good works (Ephesians 2:20).
• We are brought near to God by the blood of the Lamb (Ephesians 2:13).
• We gained access to the Father (Ephesians 2:18).
• We are citizens of Heaven, saints, member of God’s body, bride, heirs, and God’s building (Ephesians 2:19).
• Loved by Christ (Ephesians 3:19, Ephesians 5:2, 25.)

In case you are constantly reminded about what you don’t have, I want to remind you about who you belong to. However, what trips people up is they don’t feel it. The Bible never asks you to feel it but to know it.

Don’t be concerned with feeling the truth, know the truth.

I want to highlight that you don’t sit down; you get seated. You cannot do that. We are to abide in Christ, indicating that it is a fact. We are already in Him as Christians.

2. Walking

Paul cautions us in Ephesians 2, “But once you walked according to this world.” In other words, we lived like the world and we must not do that anymore. Later, he also says that God created us for good works which we have to walk in. We are not saved by good works but for good works, that we may walk in them.

• In Ephesians 4, we are told to “Walk worthy of our calling.”
• Ephesians 4:17, “You should no longer walk like the rest of the gentiles walk, in the futility of our minds, having their understanding darkened.”
• Ephesians 5:2, Paul says to “walk in love.”
• Ephesians 5:8 tells us to “walk as children of the light.”
• Ephesians 5:15 says we should “walk in wisdom.”

Notice that the Bible commands us to walk; it does not say we are walking. This means that because of Christ, we have all we need to walk but it is still a choice to actually walk. Walking is not like any other exercise in that it is very restful.

As a Christian, the Spirit of God powers your new desires in Christ; so the tasks of walking, working, and living don’t become too hard. To live a Christian life is not hard if you are a Christian. However, you can be seated in Christ and not walking. There are people who are trying to live a Christian life but have never experienced a seated Christian life. The Christian life is not about living righteously; it is about being righteous, which you do through repentance and your belief in Jesus. It is not hard to walk, just hard to make the decision to walk.

If you are finding the Christian walk hard, I want to ask you, have you been born again?

Do you have a new nature that wants to do good?

If you have been, have you fully believed what the Bible says about you? The Christian walk is about being seated first. God does not expect people to walk who have not first sat in the knowledge of who Christ is, what He has done for them, and who they are now as a result.

Now if you are born again, the other issue that I notice is that we have too many people today who are seated in Christ but do not want to walk.

The grace of God that does not change my life will not save my soul.

Charles Spurgeon

As you practice your Christian walk, two things will happen: you will close doors to demons and open the door to intimacy with the Holy Spirit. If you don’t walk, you will gain unnecessary weight and burdens, not because it is God’s will. The Bible says in Titus that the grace of God which saves us teaches us to deny ungodliness and look forward to Christ.

If the grace of God did not change your life, I really wonder if it saved your soul.

3. Standing

This is our battle posture. This includes standing when hell breaks loose in our lives.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all, to stand firm.

Ephesians 6:13

An evil day is a day when all hell breaks loose. The Bible doesn’t tell us why this happens but what we should do when it does – stand.

It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in war.

Verse 17 warns of the fiery darts of the enemy. That is the equivalent of long-range sniper shots today. As you are walking your Christian walk, suddenly you will get bombarded out of nowhere with persuasive, convincing, compulsive, pushy, condemning, doubting, fearful, intimidating, and anxious thoughts. This is when you take your posture as a warrior.

You might be in a danger zone but you are a dangerous person to the enemy because you have the Spirit of God living inside you, God’s angels surrounding you, and God’s armor upon you. Do not fear or fret, child of God. Stand and you will withstand whatever comes against you. If you don’t know what to do, stand. If you prayed, stand your ground.

What you have to do is learn to extinguish those thoughts(Ephesians 6:17). Do not accept those thoughts as your own. They are not the way God thinks about you, they are how the devil thinks about you.

Sometimes the warfare changes and it’s no longer just thoughts bombarding your mind, but it feels as though the enemy has gotten very close. At that moment, you have the sword of the Spirit, which is meant for close combat. You don’t yield or fumble in that evil presence. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.

When the enemy closes in, you resist the devil and he will flee. The enemy has no defense system for the weapon you have.

I encourage you to continue in your walk with Christ. Whether you are learning who you are in Him, walking in what He’s said about you, or simply standing while under attack, I urge you to keep pressing into God’s presence. Allow His Spirit to comfort you and His Word to be the lamp to your feet.