One of the most harmful ways we can ever approach the Christian life is by looking at the Christian life through human eyes. Human eyes will give an ungodly, misguided and misunderstanding view on how the Christian life is. Our human flesh will twist things around our own way. Especially in the areas of sanctification and how the Christian life should work. We so often want to see the Christian life in a certain way that it causes us to have a guilt complex.

Let me give you a few examples.

Example 1: The Gospel

We are told in the New Testament that a person will be saved when they place their trust in Jesus Christ.

“6 Jesus answered, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14.6)

“16 for the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” (Romans 10.11)

Yet, how often do we look for other things that must take place before we are saved, other than to believe in Christ?

If we are not saved, we think then, “Well, I must have not prayed hard enough yet.” Or, “I must have done something wrong.” Or, “I’m still young.” The list could go on and on and on. We try to find other things that must be done before a person is saved. We look at the Christian life in the wrong way. We look at the Christian life in the wrong way because we are looking at it with human eyes. We approach the Christian life the way the world would approach it. We look at the Christian life the way the world would look at a person getting saved. And that’s because we’ve bought into the world’s teaching on the Christian life.

The world says that a person must do something good in order to have it paid off. Even though the New Testament does not teach that. We find ourselves trying to be good enough in our own eyes to be saved, even though the New Testament teaches that we are not good enough. Our natural state is fallen and because of our fallenness we are unable to do good (Romans 3.23). So, we end up trying to do the right thing so that God will say to us, “Okay, now I’ll save you.” Or else we will find ourselves trying to do good for God to get us into heaven. We want to do the right thing to earn our salvation. That’s how the world thinks the Christian life works, that’s how the flesh thinks the Christian life works, that’s how man thinks the Christian life works. So, we approach the Christian life the same way. It’s because we see the Christian life with human eyes. We try to find something else that a person must do in order to get saved. We try to find something good that we might be able to do to save ourselves. Therefore, we come up with our guilt complex. That’s the great deception of the Christian life. That’s the great deception that is trying to twist and bend how the Christian life is. Because the Christian life is only through the grace of God. We are not saved by doing anything. We cannot pay God back for all of the things that we have done wrong. We cannot pay God back for all of the sins that we have committed. All of the sinful deeds that we have done. The Bible teaches that a person is only saved when they believe in Christ. Salvation is only through the grace of God. We are not saved through any works that we have done in our own lives. And we think that maybe we need to add something to that equation to get ourselves saved. But there is nothing else to the equation. The only thing that is to be done is to believe in Jesus Christ.

Yet, we find ourselves trying to do other things to be saved. That’s the great deception of the Christian life. We try to find other things that must be done in order to be saved. And that causes us to have a guilt complex.

Example 2: Being a Christian

We are told in the New Testament that a person must repent from their sins if they are to be saved (Acts 2.38). Yet, we say, “I must do my best to live a good and decent life. That’s what it means to be a Christian.” When we live a life of sin, we know that we are not being a very good Christian. But how is it that we should come back to God? We’ve sinned. We’ve gone against His commands. We are thinking in human terms. We are approaching the Christian life through the eyes of man. So, we think, “I must do a whole lot of things in order to get right with God again. I need to pay Him back for all of the sins I’ve done. I need to be a better Christian. I need to be a better me.” We approach the Christian life as we think that we can get back into God’s good graces and be a better Christian. We are trying to be like Christ. We are trying to look like Him. We are trying to do what He wants. So, we get back to being a Christian. How is that any different than thinking that we must pay God back for our sins so that we can get back right with Him again? It’s because we look at the Christian life the way the world looks at things. And the world is about being the best person you can be in your own flesh. The Christian life is different. We are different. We approach Christianity in the wrong way because we are only looking at it with human eyes.

Example 3: Being Sanctified

We are told in the New Testament that a person can only have their sins forgiven if they come to Christ. We are also told that a person will be sanctified by faith and not by works (Galatians 3.3). Yet, how is it that we go about sanctification? How is it that we try to get more sanctified? We see that sanctification is something that can only be done by faith. And since we cannot save ourselves we want to try to get more sanctified by doing the things that we think God would want. We want to come up with a plan that will make us be more like Christ. So, we come up with these things that we are going to do to get more like Christ and therefore, be more sanctified. So, we will sin less and so forth. And we think that since we are more like Christ now that we are more sanctified. But the whole thing was human eyes. We are sanctified by faith and faith alone. Faith in the gospel of Christ. Nothing else can save us or sanctify us. We cannot work to make ourselves more sanctified. Sanctification is the work of God.

The Christian life is lived by faith alone. The Christian life is not about our best efforts to get saved or to be a Christian. The Christian life is about relying upon Christ for our salvation. The Christian life is not about us trying to get back into God’s good graces by being better people. The Christian life is about being forgiven by Christ. The Christian life is not about our best efforts to get more sanctified. The Christian life is about being transformed by the Holy Spirit. The Christian life is about trusting in Christ. We only trust in Christ to save us. We do not trust in our best efforts. We do not trust in being a better Christian. We do not trust in being a better person. We trust in Christ and Him alone for all of these things. The New Testament teaches that the Christian life is all about trusting in Christ.

Conclusion

The Christian life is something that we would never want to try to explain away in human terms. We never want to look at the Christian life in human terms. We never want to look at the Christian life through the human eye. We do not want to think of ourselves as being the best people that we can be and wanting to be like Christ. We want to think of ourselves as being completely dependent upon Christ and letting Him do the work in us that no man can do. The Christian life is only lived by faith. The Christian life is all about trusting in Christ. The Christian life is not about anything else than the work of God. The Christian life is not about our own works. The Christian life is not about our own doing. The Christian life is all about the work of God. We never want to look at the Christian life through human eyes. The Christian life is only through the eyes of God. We want to look at the Christian life through the grace of God.

The Christian life is something that we cannot do on our own. The Christian life is a supernatural thing. The Christian life is only through the grace and power of God. We cannot do the Christian life. That’s because it is not something that we can do. It is something that is done to us. The Christian life is only through the grace and power of God. The Christian life is something that we cannot achieve. The Christian life is something that is impossible for us to achieve on our own. The Christian life is something that is given to us freely and without strings attached. And we have absolutely nothing