The Christian life is mistakenly simplified to mean, “stop doing bad things.” The truth, however, is much deeper and richer than this shallow view. Instead, the repeated admonitions in the NT are, “Stop doing bad and start doing good!” 

Paul admonishes such actions in plenty of places. Briefly consider Paul’s exhortations at the end of Ephesians 4. To summarize, Paul says, “Stop lying, instead you should fill your time by speaking the truth” (Eph. 4:24). “Stop stealing, instead work and be generous” (Eph. 4:28). “Stop speaking vulgarities, and instead start speaking edifying words” (Eph. 4:29). “Stop doing nasty things to people and grieving the Holy Spirit, instead act as a true child of God and be kind and gracious to one another like God” (Eph. 4:30-32).  

The essence of Christianity is not just to stop doing bad things, but to fill your life with doing good. Far too often we get absorbed in ourselves, in our own struggles, or our own temptations. Instead of filling our thoughts with “woe is me!”, we should look outside of ourselves and fill our time with “where can I help!” The danger in focusing too much on our own struggles is that we forget everyone around us is struggling too. A friend recently illustrated this point by considering cancer. The greatest danger of cancer is not that it will kill you physically. You are going to die either way, it will just speed up the process. The greatest danger is spiritual, it can cause you to be self-absorbed and forget about everyone else. It can ultimately cause you to forfeit your faith, or forfeit the selfless mentality that your faith demands. 

Our job is to selflessly look after another. The better we fill our time with such selfless actions, the better we will walk in the faith ourselves.