Living for God!

How are we to live for God? Some Christians try to live for God by their own willpower. But we all know that "the arm of the flesh will fail" us and we dare not trust ourselves. So, many Christians have embraced the popular "let go and let God" method of the Christian life which has no biblical basis. Most then opt for the "Lord, help me" method which sounds reasonable, but often masks an attitude which says, "Lord, I can handle my life up to a certain point, but beyond that point, I really need your help." Living like this looks good for we usually begin the day by praying, "Lord, help me", but by mid morning we are doing just fine we think handling life on our own. Then the crisis comes after lunch and we scream, "Lord, help me." This method is inadequate because it demonstrates partial dependence on God at best or uses God as a crutch at worst. It results in disappointment and frustration, especially when the Lord doesn't respond the way that we think he should have.

The heart attitude that says, "Lord, enable me to do what you command or will me to do" is the right way to live for God. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). John Owen rightly observed, "We don'’t have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God's tasks. This is the law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform the duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment. But alas, this is a secret we often fail to discover. So we recognize that God calls us to use all our faculties (our mind, our will, our affections) in order to live out the Christian life, but we do it with utter dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Abiding it Christ indicates an all out effort on our part but doing so in a conscious and total dependence on the Spirit to give us the life of Christ. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). "For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me" (Colossians 1:29). Yes, we must labor and strive in the spiritual life but if we don't do so in the Lord's strength and through his enablement we will fail.

Again Owens says, "The spiritual life which I have is not my own. I did not induce it, and I cannot maintain it. It is only and solely the work of Christ. It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me. My whole life is His alone."

So we should pray like this, "Lord, enable me today to worship You and commune with You today. Without You my mind is dead and my heart is like stone." "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). As Psalm 127:1 reminds us,

"Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain."