Stop Living For God and Live From God
Are we supposed to live for God? Should we be working for God? Do we live the Christian life by doing things for God?
It’s pretty common to hear people use this language. Just last week I overheard someone else tell a teenager that he was really glad to see a young person living for God.
Maybe it’s the way that you are trying to live your life. Maybe it’s not, but you feel like it is what you should be doing. I think a lot of people feel that way.
WHY DO WE TRY AND LIVE FOR GOD?
I think there are a lot of reasons that many of us feel like we need to live or work for God.
DUTY
Sometimes we may think that we are obligated to work for God. It’s our duty to live our lives doing things for God. He is our Master and we are just supposed to do things for Him.
PAYBACK
Other times we might feel like we need to pay Jesus back for dying on the cross for us. He made such a huge sacrifice for us, so we owe Him for giving His life for us. It feels like the right thing to do.
GIVING THANKS
Since Jesus paid the ultimate price for our sins, we might think the way we give thanks to Him is to do things for Him. If God sees us working for Him, then maybe He’ll view that as us being grateful for what He did for us.
TRYING TO GET SOMETHING FROM HIM
When we need our situations and circumstances to change, we might think that God is more willing to work in our favor if we’ve been doing things for Him. He’ll heal us from cancer, fix our marriage, or give us a job promotion if we are living for Him.
GOD DIDN’T SAVE YOU TO GET SOMETHING FROM YOU
Whatever your reason is for trying to work for God, He didn’t save you to get something from you.
He doesn’t need anything from you. You won’t ever be able to do enough to pay Him back. He isn’t waiting for you to live for Him so that He can give you a better life. He is your life!
God doesn’t want you to do things for Him. He wants you to receive from Him.
We were made to be dependent beings. God was always meant to be our Source, and we were made to receive from Him.
Jesus said that He is the vine and we are the branches. Branches are receivers. Branches are not living for the vine. They are not working for the vine. They simply receive from the vine, and the vine expresses its life through the branch.
Jesus gave His life for you so that He could put His life in you and express His life through you.
He doesn’t want you to do things for Him; He wants to do things through you. What He wants from you is intimacy. He desires a relationship. He loves you and wants you to experience His life and love through you.
When Paul was writing to the church in Ephesus, he shared what he prayed for them in Ephesians 3:14-21. Look at what he says in that prayer.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3:16-19)
Paul didn’t pray for them to do things for God. He prayed that they would experience the love of Christ. Look at what he said next.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.
(Ephesians 3:20)
Paul knew that as they began to know and experience the love of Christ in them, His life would come flowing out of them. God was going to do the work through them.
The same is true with us. God’s desire is for you to know and experience His love through Christ. He wants you to receive from Him and allow the Life of Christ to be expressed through you.
Let’s stop trying to live for God and live from God instead.
