“Extraordinary Living” 500 posts later …

“There’s nothing extraordinary about my life” is what many (if not most) people would say. But if you’re living your life as a follower of Christ, that isn’t true!

Smith Wigglesworth once wrote, “To be saved by the power of God is to be brought from the ordinary to the extraordinary.”

It’s with that thought in mind that on March 21, 2009, I wrote my first post for this blog, “Extraordinary Living,” with the idea of launching a blog that would provide a variety of material about the extraordinary call to life Christians face. A little more than a couple years later, this is now my 500th post for this blog. To re-capture the original intent, I’ve chopped off the opening and closing of that first article, and am re-posting it below.

From March, 2009 …

Living the Christian life is not an ordinary thing. Who we once were exists no longer … we have died to self, have been buried with Christ, and have risen to walk in newness of life. That’s an extraordinary thing!

But living out that new life in Christ is where both adventures and challenges begin, and is something Jesus really wants us to experience fully. In fact, Jesus said that He had come so that we may have life and experience it abundantly.

Extraordinarily.

We’re to live differently. God calls His people to stand out, to be different. Yet, on any given Sunday you’ll hear much the same conversation among Christians as you do co-workers around the water cooler … challenges of life, difficulties of living, problems faced, challenges and testings.

I think we’re missing a lot of the joy God intended for us to experience as His children. And if we are, it’s our fault! God doesn’t promise us a life of ease. In fact, Jesus said in this world we will most definitely have some troubles. BUT, then He added something we so often overlook … He said, “But take heart, for I have overcome the world.”

Extraordinary living isn’t about a life of ease. And it doesn’t mean that life is easy … although I think it’s often easier than we make it. But regardless of the circumstances we face in life, we decide how we respond to all of life’s good and bad times.