Newton on the Christian Life, has greatly impacted my life as I’ve read it over the past few semesters. As I’ve dug into this incredible book, reading chapter after chapter, conviction began to rise in me over my lack of fight and persistence to live a Christ filled life. As a result of reading this book, I now have motivation and drive to accomplish what God has placed me on this earth to do: share the Gospel with people of every kind. Joy, as Reinke explains, is critical to the Christian life. In fact, he goes as far to say that it should be one of the top priorities. But I had never thought about joy as a fight. Before this book, I had always thought of joy as more of an emotion than an actual state of being. But as I read, it finally began to dawn …show more content…
As I practice my daily Christian disciplines—reading my Bible, praying, fasting, and meditating, to name a few—my bucket begins to be filled with joy and as I continue to mature in these disciplines my “joy-bucket” begins to overflow and touch other people's buckets. That is exactly how we begin to reach others with the Gospel. Newton saw people as “profoundly majestic, spiritually dead, and eternally existing” which is exactly how we should view them─eternal souls. When our joy bucket begins to overflow, we can begin to view people not just as people, but as eternal souls loved by an Eternal God. Souls that Christ came and died for. Since these souls are eternal, it should drive us to share with these people 一 no matter what age, gender, or race 一 the Gospel and our joy that we have so freely been given. Since God created each and every one of us, then “there are no ordinary people”. Throughout scripture, we ponder the proclamation to love one another time and time again, but how much easier would this be if we began to view people as immortal souls rather than just another human being? For this very reason, we should strive to love each and every one of these souls as much as Christ