Living for Christ

What is your goal in life? Where is your focus? Are you a college student working towards a degree that will bring that six figure job you so long for. Maybe you are already employed, but are seeking the big promotion. Maybe you are a high school student intent on making the big leagues, practicing baseball every day. It doesn’t matter what it is your desire is in life, if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, there must be a redirection in your priorities. One of the biggest lies we have allowed ourselves to fall for is the lie of self-importance. Maybe it is better to call it self-reliance.

In everything I have ever done in my life, it was my goal to be completely reliant on myself. At work I did everything I could to learn my job in a manner that assured I would never need to depend on anyone else. I attended a survival school that taught me how to find food and shelter if ever I was lost in the woods. Even as a child I learned to entertain myself so I would always be able to exist without friends. But then as my life progressed, God, using the trials and tribulations of my life, taught me that I could not survive without him in my life. Then as my Christian life progresses, he has taught me that I also need the fellowship and the resulting encouragement of the Body of Christ. My studies in God’s Word has reaffirmed that God desires that we share with other Christians, not only for our good, but for their good as well.

As we look at God’s Word we will find out what He wants us to be seeking in life. Let us start with our true needs. Often we confuse them with wants. Jesus has already promised to take care of us. Matthew chapter 6 is a good place to start. Listen to the words of Christ starting in verse 25 where he tells us this: “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” He goes on in this section to demonstrate that if God provides food and clothing for the birds and the plants, He will certainly do so for us. God knows we need these things. Instead Jesus tells us in verse 33 to, “… seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Clearly our priority in life is to seek the kingdom of God, not food, housing, or clothes.

What this comes down to is a matter of the heart, our hearts that is. Ask yourself this; have I really given my heart to Jesus? Or do I want to take His free gift of salvation but not die to myself because of it. Listen to the very words of Jesus as quoted from Matthew 16:24-26, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” What Jesus is saying here is that if we choose to follow Him, though our salvation is a free gift, it does not come without responsibility. The question for today is this: Are you willing to lose your life for Him? Jesus says this in John 12:25-26 "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. "If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” I don’t think we can argue that Jesus is calling us to die to ourselves and to start living for him.
So what does that mean to live for Christ? It means to live out our lives as He lived His. He says this in John 15:12-14, "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. "You are My friends if you do what I command you.” Jesus gave His life on the cross for me and for you. Accepting that sacrifice for our sins means that we should submit ourselves to him. Often we speak of Jesus as our savior, but we forget that he is to be Lord of our lives as well. Romans 10:9, one of our basic salvation texts, does not mince words saying, “…that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Take careful note of that, it says “confess…Jesus as Lord.”
If we confess Jesus as our Lord, then we are called to obey Him when he gives us a commandment. He has clearly commanded us to love one another as He has loved us and that means to give up ourselves as he gave up Himself. We should study and pray over Philippians 2:1-8 which says this, “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Would you like to see your relationships change? Then seek to live out your life as Jesus has called us to. Begin putting the needs of others in front of your own desires and I guarantee God will bless you in ways you would ever have expected. Start sacrificing the small useless things in your life and begin serving others. This what the Apostle Paul meant when he told us Philippians 2:12 to “ work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Remember with God nothing is impossible and through the power of the Holy Spirit we can live out our lives as God’s servants in the Kingdom of Heaven. We can stop living a life devoted to our own priority and live it His way.

As always be strong in the Lord.