Not many look at each moment of their life as an opportunity to serve God. Time passes so quickly and we lead such frenzied lives that we scarcely notice the opportunities we miss and the decisions we make by rote. It is for this reason that we do not experience great growth in our spiritual lives. Until we learn to capture each moment we encounter, we will struggle to live our life wholly devoted to Christ. A life that is wholly His recognizes every decision is an opportunity to say yes to God and no to our selfish desires. Every breath we take, every thought we think, is a new opportunity to die to ourselves and find ourselves alive in Christ.
I doubt any readers of this blog will not long to live their life in such a way. Those who want nothing more than to live for Jesus despair when they fail to live up to the standard He set for us. Nothing discourages me more than to fall into the same selfish patterns over and over again. Where is the victory Christ promised to those who love Him? Our brains war against our efforts to follow Jesus. While we may genuinely wish to serve and follow Him, habits ingrained by years of repetition sabotage our best efforts to change. If we want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we will need to create new habits to replace our selfish ones.
New habits do not come easily. Nor do old ones willingly die. It takes conscious effort and copious amounts of prayer to eradicate selfishness from our lives. A true disciple of Jesus doesn’t live their life by happenstance. We follow Christ by being intentional with every single second of our lives. When faced with any decision, it must become second nature to think, “What would please God in this situation?” or “How might I glorify God in this circumstance?”
Our lives are no longer our own, and there could be no better news. Left to our own devices, we are destined to spend eternity forever separated from God. As long as we exercise any modicum of control in our lives, we are destined to fail.
The way of the disciple is intentional and conscious. Our selfish desires prefer to not be encumbered with that kind of responsibility. We just want to be happy, safe, pampered, and entertained. How will we face Jesus if that is the way we choose to live our lives? What will we say to Him when our entire existence looks nearly identical to those who war against Him? Peter says that we are aliens and strangers in this world (1 Peter 2:11), but far too many of us look like natural born and lifelong citizens.
Every second of every minute of every hour of every day is an opportunity to serve God or serve you. For what are you truly living your life? When your time is done, for what do you want to be known? Don’t be fooled by the temporal pleasures of this world. Instead, long for the eternal treasures of the Kingdom. This is the way of the disciple.