When you join the family of God, note that you have joined a group of people characterized by giving.  Giving is everything in a winning Christian life.  The entire Christian life is based on a giving lifestyle.  Christians will truly lose their value in the absence of giving.  John 3:16 is the foundation of our Christian faith.  Everything we enjoy started from there—that God gave His only precious Son to save the world from sin.  When we were yet sinners, God demonstrated His love to us by giving the life of His Son Jesus to save us from our sins.

Jesus has become the perfect example of all time.  He continued to give His life on a daily basis to the world that all would know Him as Lord.  He gave His life by dying on the cross without the fear of losing His life.  In my studies, I noticed that the Son of God was ready to go to any extreme to give His life to mankind.

The life of the apostles was also characterized by giving.  (Acts 3:6)  Peter gave what he had.  You must understand that the giving life is not about money.  It is about your life, your joys, blessings and everything you possess.  Many Christians are ready to give something to God, but not everything.  They will give their souls, their family, and then keep their wealth or profession from the Lord.  It doesn’t work that way.  God wants you to give Him everything.

John 10:17-18 says that you should lay your life down to the Father in all your ways.  Jesus said if you give God everything, no one will take anything from you.  Child of God, this is the day to strip yourself of everything, get your life out of the picture, and put God in front of everything you do.  This is the kind of life that wins and keeps winning on every side of the Christian walk.

Apostle Paul highlighted on the giving life by saying we should present ourselves as a living sacrifice unto the Lord.  This sounds great. Anything that was sacrificed to the Lord in the Old Testament became God’s property.  To become a living sacrifice unto the Lord cannot be avoided in the place of anything. 

Friend, it is time to go all out for the Lord—give everything to Him.  If you sacrifice your life to Him, He who never sleeps nor slumbers will watch over all that is in your interest.  The Lord blesses you.

back to top

From the Scripture in Colossians 1:10, it is clear that to walk worthy of the Lord describes a radical commitment of will, affection, and deposition to pleasing Jesus Christ for a fruitful life.  It is the will of God that we become fruitful in every good work of the Lord.

Fruitfulness in this sense is to live a life that is conducive to productivity that is producing something in abundance or producing results.  Genesis 1:26 introduces us to the cornerstone of biblical understanding of fruitfulness.  The Bible metamorphic ally refers to believers as a garden kept by the Lord.  You are a garden of the Lord.  1 Corinthians 3:9 confirms that you are the garden of the Lord as a believer.  Isaiah also refers to the believer as the planting of the Lord that is you are planted in the garden of the Lord to flourish or be fruitful.  (Isaiah 61:3b, Isaiah 60:21c)

You don’t need to be a farmer to know that a garden is of no use unless it bears fruit.  In the same sense, I would be right in saying your Christian life will not be of much value when you don’t bear fruits.  Our redeemer desires that we become fruitful.  (Luke 13:6-9)  God has a sense of expectation in His garden.  The new life that God gives is not as if a farmer should cast seed into the ground and not reap any fruit from it.

Like a tiny mustard seed, no matter how insignificant your life may be, there is potential in everyone to reproduce and be fruitful (Matthew 13:31-32).  Though in outward appearance, the mustard seed is insignificant, it is able to conceive a tree.  This is how the winning Christian life must be like, regardless of the limitations in our surrounding environment.  (Psalm 1:3, Jeremiah 17:8)

God’s will for the believer’s normal life experience is to be one of victory, because the defeated Christian life is abnormal.  It is the will of the Father that every Christian will conquer in every environment we find ourselves.

According to Romans 8:35-37, every child of God must live a conquering life, even in the increase of troubles and difficulty.  Apostle Paul talks about the antagonistic environment designed by the devil to subdue the believer and destroy our faith in God.  From John 16:33, Jesus relates the world to an environment of troubles.  He says that in this world, we will encounter many troubles.

Today, we live in a world that is hostile to our faith.  Yet whether it is tribulation, anguish, persecution, famine, or nakedness, we will not only conquer, but more than conquer.  You must not give up in the tough times of your Christian life.  Any form of difficulty that comes your way to challenge your Christian life will help make a great difference in your life.  You may not be able to stop the poisonous activities of Satan that feeds the environment to resist you from winning, but you can overcome the environment to live a winning life in Christ.

The problem with many believers today is that when faced with a little trial, they scream and complain to everyone about how they have endured and suffered.  Yet if we learn to overcome environment we shall more than conquer all things. 

We should join Apostle Paul today to say thanks be to God He grants us what it takes to triumph even in a difficult environment. (2 Corinthians 2:14)  In the center of our greatest trial, God wants us to have our greatest triumph.  God’s will is for us to always triumph in our Christian life.

Ephesians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 3:3

When we first got saved, our hearts were filled with joy because of the grace of God that found us.  Great hope was in our hearts and we thought that from that time on, we would walk a victorious path.  No temptation could be too strong to overcome; our future was filled with hope because at that time, we tasted the peace and joy of sin’s forgiveness for the first time.  In most cases, people’s communion with God at new birth is sweat less and without effort.

The scenario is like a young lady that has found the love of her life—her heart is filled with joy, she is fulfilled, and overshadowed with the happiness that comes along with it.  At the new birth stage, most people thought of going to Bible school immediately.  They were filled with joy and thought Jesus was coming back soon because heaven was very close to them.

Unfortunately, this beautiful condition and expectation does not last long, and most of our wonderful expectations are not fulfilled.

Romans 7:19-21 gives a picture of this unfulfilled, defeated Christian life.  The sins you thought were overcome find their way back into your life.  Sins that couldn’t defeat you come back at you.  You then find yourself doing things your new nature does not want to do.  You find your old temper; pride, gossip, lust, lying, and jealousy rise up to challenge your faith.  (1 Corinthians 3:3)  For other believers, their relationship with God doesn’t look the way they wanted it to any more.  You then try your best to deal with some issues in your life, but you find out that some are beyond your strength.  Your daily Christian life becomes one of defeat and not victory—you begin to sense a great lack.

Many Christians having gone through such an experience have ignorantly accepted that man is fallible and so sin is unavoidable.  The question is did Jesus save us partially without taking our future into consideration?  No.

When God changed a sinner into a saint, He expects and desires an intimate relationship with such a person.  The fellowship of every believer with the Father is based upon relationship.

The picture is like a husband and wife, it is fellowship that makes marriage relationships very beautiful.  The legal law or wedding that binds two together does not guarantee fellowship.  In the same way, becoming born again doesn’t automatically create the kind of relationship the Father desires with you.

This kind of relationship between husband and wife is not because the woman is good looking and a good housekeeper or that the man is a splendid provider and a gentle person at all times.  It is when that man and woman became one spiritually, physically, and mentally that intimacy, communion, and fellowship came.

In today’s church, we often have a very limited fellowship with our Father.  From 1 Corinthians 1:9, God’s Word teaches that we are called into fellowship of the Son.

When people are weak in faith and commitment to the things of God, you can tell that their fellowship is weak, broken, or very low.  Broken fellowship robs your relationship with God, though it may not break it.  Most Christians, when victimized by broken fellowship, end up putting duty in place of fellowship with God.

Another pillar to consider for a winning Christian life is the pillar of service.  It is God’s desire that we become servants of the Kingdom and serve Him with our lives.  (John 12:26, Luke 22:26)

A true servant doesn’t serve himself, but another master.  Therefore, a servant exists to honor the will of his master and not his own will.  Service helps a true believer to dethrone himself and everything else in his experience of life and enthrone Jesus to make Him Lord in all his life.

This God-kind-of service puts the Lord Jesus Christ first in every area of our life and in everything we do.  When we succeed in putting God first in every area of our lives, we don’t serve riches, power, possession, or any other thing contrary to the will of God.  From Matthew 6:24, we have a clear understanding from God’s Word that no one can serve two masters successfully.  God wants us to give our service to Him without divided loyalty.  The winning Christian life requires that the believer becomes committed to the Lord in service to the Lord through the local church.  Service in this sense must not be mistaken for duty.  You can perform a duty in the house of God and not be servicing the Lord, but above all, God wants you to serve Him with all your heart and all your life.

To put yourself in this wonderful position of service can earn you a blessed Christian life, which is the winning life.  I notice that today’s Western society is being programmed in a way that you either end up serving yourself or serving no one.  Everything that takes your time and energy is what we have given our heart to, and that is what we really serve.  Many believers are not winning because they are faced with the temptation of serving materialism, politics, religion, or profession.  Your Christian life as a child of God can be a winning one if you learn to put God first in everything you do.  If you make accomplishing God’s will the number one priority of your life, you will surely win. 

The winning Christian walk is intended to be a love walk.  Walking in the light means walking in love.  Every step out of love is a step into darkness.  Love is a patient fuse in every fruitful walk, love for the Lord, His house, His people, and His vision for the church.

The success in your love walk with the Lord makes you win the heart of God and it becomes impossible not to make a mark in your Christian life.

In 1 John 4:20, this Scripture teaches that your love for men is a pointer to the depth of your love for God.  It is required of you to love the Lord with all your heart, but your love for people proves that you really love the Lord.  That is why you must guide yourself against hatred, jealousy, envy, and bitterness.  Any of these sins can interrupt your fellowship with the Lord.

1 John 3:15 teaches that to hate your brother or walk in bitterness towards another person makes you a murderer and that is a sign that the love of God is absent from our hearts because love is not real.  For you not to be a murderer, you must guard your heart against hatred and all such things that have the potential to destroy your love for God and His people.

From 1 John 5:2, the apostle of love teaches that when we love God and keep His commandments, it is a sign that we love God.  When we obey God’s Word and desire to obey and do as the Word says it reflects your love for God.

In today’s Christianity, people love all kinds of things.  One moment, they love peanut butter grapes, pets, food, sports, vacations, cars, children, and still they are unfulfilled.  Most people are not satisfied and keep struggling in their walk with God because they love their things more than God.  The God kind of love is sacrificial, reconciling, discerning, generous, and accepting.