Practical Christian Living

(Christies Beach Series, 1998)

Introduction

Greetings to all who will be undertaking this Course of Practical Christian Living. We believe it will be a useful one for all who are Christians and all who are not.

The first thing to be noted is that Practical Christian Living is not a course in Ethics or just the way of good moral living.

Firstly we must know in what context or situation we are living. We need to know what it is to be one of God's people in today's world, which is a flow on from yesterday's world to tomorrow's world and to the end of time's history. We need to know what it is to enter Christianity and become a Christian. We need to know why this is necessary and how it happens. Then we will know where we stand, what we are about and where we are going. That will be helpful for most folk do not know who they are, why they are in this world, what they are to do, and what will become of them.

The living of the Christian life, whilst often not easy, is not hard moral slogging to be good and to be righteous. It is not trying to do good from our own resources because not much comes of that exercise. It is in all our humanity, weakness and strange ways, living a useful and purposive life by the grace of God Who loves us. It is also a life which has a goal so that we do not have to be aimless. The following Program tries to give us a background to the past, present and future. It may seem a lot of introduction but it is necessary and will give us a perspective on the plan of God in which we live. It will also help us to make sense of history.