What are you doing today? What plans are you making for your life? In our consumerist and materialistic society, it is easy to get caught up in a life that does little to reflect Jesus or promote the growth of His Kingdom. The problem is, as followers of Christ, we are called to live for a single purpose: to glorify God by furthering the mission of Jesus. We stand in the midst of a generation of believers who profess their faith in Christ yet live lives that show little evidence of that commitment. Jesus died to not only forgive our sins, but to transform us from the inside out. I don’t know about you, but I don’t run into a lot of transformed Christians. I meet many who go to church or donate their time and money to worthy causes, but those activities are a far cry from transformation. We have one purpose and one goal; everything else is futile and worthless.
I have recently been convicted of the fact that we have two options for living our lives: at any moment we should either be obeying a direct command of Scripture or doing something that is furthering the Kingdom. It is my belief that any time spent outside of those options is time spent outside of the will of God. We were not created to see how much money we can make, how much fun we can have, or how much sleep we can get. We were called to serve Christ and others. This is the one and only goal for the life of every Christian. Do you want to know what the will of God is for your life? Love God and love people; sacrifice everything you have to the service of Christ; commit yourself to walk wholeheartedly in the footsteps of Jesus. This is the will of God for you: to live a life that looks like Jesus.
When we are engaged in activities that are not in service to God or others, we are living selfish lives, and Satan rejoices; he need not worry about exerting any effort against us as long as we are content to be living for ourselves. We have already wasted so much time in pursuit of our own dreams and desires. When will we finally understand and comprehend that this life is not about us? It never has been, and it never will be. If we want to be followers of Christ, then we must allow Him to transform our self-centered, materialistic lives into God-centered lives of service.
As you look forward to your life over the next month, year or decade, what is it that you intend to do for the glory of God? Have you even considered the question before? We all make plans for our lives, but how many of us actually do so with God at the forefront of those plans? For the last couple of generations, Christians in the West have been lulled to sleep by a Gospel that is not present in the pages of the Bible. We as the Church look no different from those who do not yet know Jesus. We live for the same American Dream as our unbelieving friends. We spend our money on the comforts of life while billions are starving and have never heard the message of Jesus Christ. We are set apart, but we have rejected that call on our lives in exchange for the temporal and vanishing pleasures of the world.
What are your plans for the week, for today, for the next hour? I challenge you to re-examine every part of your life and let go of anything that is not useful for promoting the Kingdom of God. We only need Jesus; everything else is useless and serves only to pull us away from our Savior and the life He has created us to live. Following Christ is not a passive quest; those who treat it as such may be dismayed when they are called to account for their lives (Matthew 25:31-46). Life is meant for the sole purpose of serving Christ by serving others. It’s not about us. It’s all about Jesus.