How to Be a Strong Christian, Part 5: Thankfulness & Walking by Faith

The last aspect of walking in the light that
I will mention here is being thankful.
This will help with many areas of
your life. Start by recognizing that God is the creator of all things. Look at
all the trees, all the flowers, all the clouds, stars, sun, and moon. Thank
God. Then thank God for all of your family. Thank Him for all wildlife: fish,
animals, and birds.

“Give
thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1
Thess. 5:18). 

“Do
not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And
the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts
and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7).

Giving thanks is God’s will for you. It
results in peace that passes all comprehension.

“I
have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers” (Eph.
1:16). 

“I
thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I
always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first
day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:3-6).

Being thankful is an exercise of the
will in obeying God’s command to be thankful in everything. The Scripture does
not say, “Be thankful for
everything.” Be thankful in
everything. I am not thankful for
being sick, but I can be thankful in
being sick. When I am thankful in everything, then I can rejoice always.  When I make my petitions to God with
thankfulness, I end up with peace. I will talk more about this in the next
chapter.

One of the signs of walking in the light
is singing. This is not a way to walk
in the light, but a result of it. When you walk in the light, you may end up
singing to the Lord, even if you don’t know any great hymns.

I knew one young woman who had been “converted” several times
and still wasn’t saved. She had read every book in the Christian bookstore and
gone to every counselor in town. She went to multiple people for counseling, attended our
school of practical Christianity, and read several books. I met with them both
a couple times and with her more times. She knew all the answers but did not
seem able to put them into effect in her life.

One day she showed up at our front door. Bessie met her and told her to
go sit in one of the chairs under the apple tree in the backyard while she went
to find me.

At that moment, I was reading a book by Watchman Nee, and I had just
read a paragraph where Nee said (to paraphrase), “Two men can hear the same
text preached at the same time. ‘I am the way the truth and the life, no man
cometh to the Father but by me.’ One person will hear that text and say,
‘Oh, that’s wonderful!’ and will come to the Father through Jesus Christ.
Another person will say, ‘Oh, what a wonderful doctrine!’ and come to the
doctrine.”

Having just read that paragraph, I quoted it to the young woman under
the apple tree. She asked me, “What is the difference between the two?” 

I said, “The first has love, joy, and peace, and the other has a plaque
on the wall.”

The next day she called to tell me that she was not a Christian. I
replied that I did not think she was, either. She got upset with me because I
agreed with her.

I told her that I would not tell her how to become a Christian. Her head
was filled with the gospel already. If I told her, she would go through the
motions and not be any more saved afterwards. I said, “I’m not going to
tell you how to become a Christian, because you are a doer, and you’d just go
plug the formula. You’ve plugged it several times already, and nothing’s
happened. If I tell you how to come to the Father, you won’t understand it.
Grace, love, faith: all these terms you know by heart are empty words to you.
There are certain things you need to find out for yourself first. You have to
find out that God is holy. You have to find out how awfully sinful you are. You
have to find out how great the love of God is. After you have some glimmer of the
holiness of God, and after you have some small understanding of how sinful you
are in the light of that holiness, and after you begin to see how much love God
has for you in your sinfulness, then I will tell you the good news.”

I did not hear from her for several weeks. Then she called and asked,
“How could the Father love the Son and send Him to the cross?” She was starting
to understand.

“Oh!” I replied. “It didn’t say He loved
the Son. It says, ‘For God so loved the world
that He gave His only-begotten Son.’ That tells us not how much He loves the Son, but
how much He loves the world.”

I realized that she probably had enough
understanding for me to tell her the gospel. However, I wanted to speak
to her heart. Her head was already filled with truth, but it had not sunk in. I
decided to give her the gospel in song and poetry. Over the phone, I sang her
hymns like The Love of God, The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus, and At Calvary.

Sometime later, she was working a job cleaning
apartments. As she ran the vacuum, she was singing, “He is Lord, He is Lord, He
has risen from the dead, and He is Lord,” and she was saved in the
middle of the chorus. She was looking up to God, and her conversion was real.

After we are saved by grace through
faith, walking in the light is a grace/faith event. There is no other way.
Colossians 2:6 says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk in Him” (ESV). How did you receive Christ Jesus the
Lord? By effort? By trying? No. You quit trying when you received Christ Jesus
the Lord, and you trusted. When you quit trying and trusted grace, the Lord
changed your life.

“Therefore, as you
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” The same procedure by
which I was saved is the way I live the Christian life. When I became a
Christian, I quit trying—and having become one, I still quit trying. Living the
Christian life is like being born again every instant. It’s grace and faith.
You didn’t try to get in, and you don’t try to live.

You say, “Yes, I do.”

Well, I want to know this: do you
succeed?

People come to me and say, “Jim, I don’t
know why I failed. I tried to live
the Christian life.”

“Oh,” I say, “that’s why. You fell
because you tried to live the Christian life.”

We are not to try to live the Christian
life. Walking in the light is grace, faith, grace, faith. As soon as we get
saved, we are tempted to revert to trying. We are not to do that. The entire
book of Galatians was written against that. Paul said, “Oh foolish Galatians!”
(Gal. 3:1). You idiots! Tell me how you got into this kingdom. “Did you receive
the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so
foolish? Having been made alive by the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the
flesh?” (Gal. 6:2-3).

Look up to God and reject trying. This is what the New Testament teaches. We read it and hear
something else. We try to reinterpret everything into something we can do. Do
not read this Scripture and go back to trying.

“If I don’t try, I’ll fall.”

If you do try, you’ll fall.

A multitude of groups
today are out there teaching the secret way to the “deeper life,” and seekers
flock to them by the thousands. Those ways don’t work. This is true, and it works,
but people aren’t flocking to it—because they don’t want to walk in the light.
They want a quick fix that doesn’t require so much cleaning of their hearts.
They would rather try, or they would rather have a periodic cleansing.

Christians today do not
walk in complete joy, nor are they whiter than snow. They are living subnormal
Christian lives. However, it is possible to walk in the light as He is in the
light. That way, you do not have to get rid of the sins discussed in the
previous chapters, because you will not commit them.    

I used to be a
“tryer” and a charger, and the Lord spared me. I am “doing” more with less
effort now than I used to do with effort. This is so contrary to our normal
mode of thinking that it may not make sense to you. Ask God to help it make
sense so that you can reject trying and trust Him.[1] Books
that have helped me walk in the light include The Calvary Road, We Would
See Jesus, and Broken People,
Transforming Grace: The Gospel’s Message of Saving Love by Roy Hession and Continuous Revival and The Key to Everything by Norman Grubb.