What is expected of a child of God and how is one to live their lives? How a person lives, to some degree, tells you much about their parents. My wife, having been a minister’s daughter, was expected to live differently than someone who lived as the world lives. If she were wild and out of control, would that affected her father’s acceptance as a preacher? How we as Christian’s live, doesn’t it tell others our respect for God and do we want others to accept our Heavenly Father as we would our earth parents?

Having been a Christian for over 60 years and being a member of eleven churches, due to transfers, I have seen people, who call themselves Christians, live no differently than a pagan would live. The Bible is very clear as to what is expected of a child of God. Ephesians 1:5 “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” NLT

If you asked the people you work with or those at school, do they believe you are a Christian? Are you different now than you use to be? Have you been changed? Is there change in your heart and in your behavior? Can you feel God’s Spirit within you?

Once you become a child of God, the 12th chapter of Romans tells us how to live. We are urged to do three things: We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. We are ‘not’ to conform to the patterns of this world. We are to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us with a new mind-set and become a new person.

Romans 12:1–2 “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Once a person accepts Christ as their Savior, they are to sacrifice their bodies. This was meant to the Jews, a sacrifice was giving an offering to God that was not returnable. It put the offering at God’s disposal. It was totally committing and surrendering our self-centeredness to Christ’s ways and allowing the Holy Spirit to completely change who we are to become. We must not continue to do things the world’s ways. Once we understand what God has done for us, the greater will be our commitment. We are to live without deliberately sinning, having renounced sin. Are you a Christian who only gave part of yourselves?

Romans 12:3 “ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”

It is important as a Christian to have a healthy self-esteem but we must not over estimate ourselves. The Bible tells us the importance of being humble because of our commitment to Christ. We must never allow ourselves to become self-righteous as some Christians do. The more spiritually we become and the more faith we gain, the greater our realization that what we have is a gift from God. We must never measure ourselves by someone else’s standards or let someone else set our standards. God has given each believer a standard of faith to measure ourselves and that standard is Christ. We are to measure ourselves according to our relationship to Christ. If we use Christ as our standard we would never have to worry about being humble. God has given each of us at least one gift to carry out His will to evangelize the world through His church. We are never to be envious of another person’s gift.

Genesis 1:28 “Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
Renewing our minds also realizing that God tells us we are to be productive. We will never find joy and peace until we feel we have been productive and have a positive attitude toward being a doer and accomplishing our goals in life.

I believe many do not understand what this verse means. Fruitful means to be productive and multiply means to produce a family. Adam was removed from the garden and was told to become productive. I believe a person who is not productive will never have joy and peace in their lives. I believe as a Christian we must be productive. No matter how we act, we must do it as if we were doing it for the Lord.
Throughout my life-time as a Christian, I have always been concerned about the example I set for Christ to others. I believe it has given me an advantage in the workplace. I was promoted eight times in a large corporation.

As a child of God, has it made you act differently? Have you been able to be an example that influenced others to accept Christ as their Savior? The final measure, is your name written in the Book of Life?