Faith is a lifestyle

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27).

We try to compartmentalize our lives. What happens at work stays at work. What happens at home stays in the home. We don’t want to take the stress of a tough day home to our families. We know that the boss doesn’t want domestic problems interfering with our job performance. So we try to leave separate lives—one at the office, and another at home.

But it doesn’t end there. Guys set up ‘man caves’ in the basement or garage, a space reserved for leisure time with their buddies. Kids can act one way at school, another way when at home, and be completely different when running with a street gang. Executives go on business trips operating under the motto ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’

Sadly, we also tend to compartmentalize our faith. Religion becomes something that you do in church—and that’s where it stays. Prayer, reading the Bible, thinking about what’s right and wrong in the eyes of God—these things are for Sunday morning. Rarely do they come up during the week—or even on Sunday afternoon.

Do children stop loving their parents when they go to school? Are you allowed to break the law after the sun goes down? Does a healthy diet do any good if you only follow it one day a week? Of course not! Relationships are 24/7. The law is always in effect. Medical treatment does little good if it’s only taken sporadically.

So it is with your faith life. You cannot compartmentalize the King of all creation! You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. There is no time or place where He turns a blind eye to rudeness, fighting, theft or falsehood. Every moment of every day, you are in need of His strength, His wisdom, His love and forgiveness.

Faith is not a part of your life—faith is a lifestyle that shapes everything about you. Your faith in Jesus affects how you think about yourself, how you treat others, and the decisions that you make. Faith should express itself in every aspect of your day; if it doesn’t, Jesus is ready to forgive you and increase the faith that makes you God’s child.