Thursday, March 27, 2014

What Do You Live For?

"For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again."
2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 (NKJV)

Some people say that they live for their children, their husband, or their wife.  Others say that they live for the weekend when they have more free time, or that they live for some other activity or event.  When people say things like this they are making the statement that their life is focused on their children, husband, wife, or whatever; this person or thing gives their life meaning and purpose, it is what motivates them.  Having good family relationships, free time, and recreation are all good, but is that what our life should revolve around, is that really what we should be living our life for?

The Bible tells us that all Christians are a part of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).  The Bible also tells us that each part of the body of Christ has something it needs to supply for the rest of the body (Ephesians 4:16) and that each one of us have received a gift from God that we need to be a good steward of (1 Peter 4:10).  We need to know who we are in Christ and we need to understand that we are a part of God's plan for the world today.  While we do need to take care of things in our natural life, like our family, our focus and what our life revolves around needs to be our purpose in Christ.

Jesus gave His life for us and now we are required to live our life for Him, this is what 2 Corinthians 5 is telling us.  However, this does not mean that we have to sell all of our possessions, forsake our family and friends, and go live an isolated life on a mountain somewhere. What it does mean is that because God created us for good works (Ephesians 2:10) and He has a plan for our life that we need to focus on that and make it what we live for.  God certainly wants us to have a blessed, happy, and successful life but it all starts with finding and fulfilling our God given purpose; that is what we should live for!

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