The christian lifestyle

What comes to your mind, when you hear the word “Christianity?” Is it an image of Jesus? A Christian family? Or even the sexual abuse scandals recently in the news? I remember when I was kid, I didn’t really understand the meaning of Christianity. In Sunday school I learnt a lot about the different saints and in my childish eyes, our goal as Christians was to reach this saint-status. Many years later, I still haven’t reached it and I sincerely don’t know anybody personally who has. Today I know that this isn’t important. It took me many years to realize, that being Christian neither means to go to church every sunday, nor to pray every day. Being Christian is a choice of a lifestyle, pursuing a life following the principles of Christ.

True godly masculinity isn’t about following the stereotypes shown in the media. You don’t have to look like Chris Hemsworth to be a Christian man. You surely can, but you don’t have to. Godly masculinity isn’t about following rules, but principles.  Oxford dictionary gives the following definition for “rule”:

·         “A principle that operates within a particular sphere of knowledge, describing or prescribing what is possible or allowable.”

And the following definition for “principle”:

·          “A fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behaviour or for a chain of reasoning.”

A rule comes from the outside and forces you to behave a certain way. That’s why people say: “Rules are meant to be broken.” The motivation to follow rules is often not your own. Principles however come from the inside. When someone doesn’t follow his principles, he gets sick. Being a man of godly nature means to develop Christian principles and to follow them. This is by no means easy. You will never reach fully your goal. The way is the aim and what means being a man.

Take William Wilberforce for instance. In a time where slavery was widely accepted, he chose to not follow the rules but to follow his own principles. He was a truly Christian man and thus I want to end this post by a quote by him on how to live as a Chrisitan:

“Let him then, who would be indeed a Christian, watch over his ways and over his heart with unceasing circumspection. Let him endeavour to learn, both from men and books, particularly from the lives of eminent Christians, what methods have been actually found most effectual for the conquest of every particular vice, and for improvement in every branch of holiness. Thus studying his own character, and observing the most secret workings of his own mind, and of our common nature; the knowledge which he will acquire of the human heart in general, and especially of his own, will be of the highest utility, in enabling him to avoid or to guard against the occasions of evil: and it will also tend, above all things, to the growth of humility, and to the maintenance of that sobriety of spirit and tenderness of conscience, which are eminently characteristic of the true Christian.”