To be a “good” Christian you MUST: Read your Bible at least 1 hour a day… visit at least one night a week… teach Sunday School… Evangelize a lost person every week… Read the Bible through at least once every year… go on a mission trip (One international & the other local)… sing in the choir… and at least tithe.  Some add: Speaking in tongues, being a member of their denomination, and baptized the way THEY say is right.

Well… that’s what a lot of people believe (Because that’s what preachers have told them).  If you aren’t doing those things, then according to them you aren’t living a surrendered life for Christ.  There’s only one problem… God doesn’t give a long laundry list of what to do and not do to be a “good” Christian.  Consider the Scripture…

Micah 6:8 What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Matthew 22:35 A lawyer, asked (Jesus) a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  38 This is the great and first commandment.  39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

“Do justice… love kindness… walk humbly with God.”

“Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind… Love your neighbor as yourself.”

God never intended following and living for Him to be hard… difficult… or a burden.  In fact, if you feel pressured to DO something or BE a certain way, you are not living the kind of life God intends!  Consider again the Scripture…

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

John 4:14 Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Matthew 11:28 Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  29 Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  30 For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”

When you love someone, you WANT to do certain things and be a certain kind of person.  Genuine Christians produce good works naturally.  They don’t strain any more than a tomato plant strains to produce tomatoes!  The people for whom living the Christian life is hard are those who are trying to do it under their own power.

If you don’t have the desire… ask God to give it to you.  (Pause) Can it really be that simple?  Yes… it really is.  Honest.  I know by experience…