Now What: Who’s Life is It?

Posted by anointedplace on September 14, 2010 · 7 Comments 

I recently posted an article entitled “Now What”. This particular posted centered around a statement made by four year old son which was, “Thank God that I’m alive”. I went on to list reasons that establishes, how we live, who we live for and what it is that we are living for.

What is it that we are doing that is so important that the thought of it causes joy in our heart in that we give thanks to God?

Surprisingly, a lot of us will attempt to answer this without a key ingredient to unlocking this mystery. Which is to not only know but understand why we are here. This is very frightening to those who think they know as well as those who lay claim to be a Christian. I say that its frightening because of this:

The reasons to live reveals the source of life within a person

The reasons to live reveals the treasures of a person

The reasons to live reveals the God/gods in a person’s life

The reasons to live reveals the goals or destination of a person

The reasons to live reveals the reasons to die for a person

Also, within that post I listed biblical scripture that support what our lives should be or the key ingredient to a life worth living. Now, I would like to expound on this idea of living and this joy of life as well as what constitutes a good life. By all means I’m not a life coach in the sense of what the world would think. I’m not about to tell you how to make a better you. Quit frankly that is one of the major problems and nicely leads into what I’m about to say. A lot of what we think living is surrounds “I” and what we think is right living. Our goals are selfish in nature even those that seemed to be focused on family. Usually when a person says, I want to work hard to provide for my kids because I want a better life than “I had”. The focus on ourselves and the kids become our idol or object of success. Our source of life is now our kids, they then become our treasure and next they will soon be our gods or idol. Of course we say that our goal is financial stability but it is really to see our kids become what we have already made them to be in our minds and hearts. We now begin to work ourselves to death to reach that goal. Our culture says that there is nothing wrong with this and to not do this is wrong. Our culture also says that this is what life is for a parent. This type of life is joyless and has no room for God. All of the joy and worship is placed on the created things. Our kids become the savior of our lost past as well as the salvation of our hopeless future. We hope that through investing in our children we will save our lives. We think by offering ourselves as a blood offering we will atone for bad choices in our lives. To the grandparents these very same kids will serve as a atonement for sins generations past in regards to the parents. And this is the circle of life preservation that begins. This how I was taught to live as well. Not only does this apply to family but a multitude of things in our lives that we work for, hope for, desire, long, love, lust after or plainly covet.

I say covet because these things are at the forefront of our minds and hearts. We mediate on them day and night. We have written them on our hearts and we believe that once we have them that our lives will be complete. We feel that life will not begin until we have them. We feel that without them we can’t go on living and to die before we have them would end the world as we know it. We feel that we were born to for-fill these goals. We believe that we were put on this earth for these reasons, it is the destiny that we have created for ourselves. Its our manifest destiny. What it is that we covet is security as well as identity. We don’t see lion cubs coveting the gazelles and seeking to identify with them and seeking security in their actives or life. But the lion cubs look to their source, their father for that identity and security. Because its their father that knows them and what they need to live. It is their father that gave the cubs that lion spirit and he know what that spirit needs in order to have joy. I said joy because joy is better than happiness as joy can be present even in the middle of turmoil. Happiness depends on external factors. See, the Holy Spirit controls joy, situations dictate happiness.

Luke 9:23-27
23Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? 26If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

1 John 2:15-17
15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Philippians 2:2-4

2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

James 5:1-6

1Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. 2Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[a] 6You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.

Ephesians 4:17-24

17So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

20You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

1 Timothy 6:6-10

6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. also read verses 11-21

I know that there is a lot of scripture hear to read but it is all good for the soul. For now lets focus on Luke 9:23Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Here, Christ Jesus offers life and what it means to live a life that is not wasted. Here is our source, our reason for living on, our treasure, our God and our reason to die. Christ is our everything and our everlasting. We are to put Him first in our lives; our everyday and daily lives. But so are afraid to make such a commitment. We start to think that such devotion will alienate our family and love ones. We think that to be that sold out would end life but is it life or worldly living that we are worried about losing? I had someone ask me once, “you can’t just only listen to Christian music because you miss out on other music”. But they was only thinking about the fact what if that other music didn’t fit my life or my source for life. See, everything that is currently in our life may or may not agree with Christ and we will find ourselves having to make a choice. We will also have people in our lives who will help us make room for those things that do not glorify Christ. Again, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” The more you think about it the harder it seems right? But it is by the power of the Holy Spirit and not our own that enables us to not to merely live a Christian life but He enables our heart to be changed so that Christ can live out His life through us. You see as a Christian, it is not us that lives but Christ; now do you see why He says to deny yourself? How does this effect the people in and around us? Certainly not does putting God first puts them at the bottom or off the radar like Satan would have us to believe.

1 John 2:3-6, 9-11

3We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love[b] is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.

9Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him[c] to make him stumble. 11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

So how can a true believer and follower of Christ hate, neglect or abandon friends, family and neighbors and say that they are working hard for the Lord? If you see someone doing that then what has happened is that their loving of work for Jesus has excessed their love for Jesus. They have become more concerned about their appearance or deeds and not at all concerned about living out Christ commandments. We must all guard against this habit.

1 John 4:19-21

19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

The Lord calls us to love Him above all and then to love everyone else. We can’t say that we love God and yet not everyone else. Out of our love for God flows life and everything that goes along with it. When Christ is our source we are alive and to die without doing what He commands should fill us with freight. Its like being on your deathbed then realizing that there were people that you never said “I love you” to. And yet at the same time you are filled with joy because you will see your source face to face. Do we fear leaving this world more than we fear leaving this world with our duty undone? If the reason that you breath is because you ate a certain food. And the person that gave you that food, thus giving you life said that you could never pay enough so don’t worry about paying it back. Then the person said that the only thing I ask is that you tell others about this food and give it to them for free. Would you do it? And if you were called home before you could do it how would you feel?

So looking at life in the light of Christ, looking at death in the light of Christ, looking at our reasons for living in the light of Christ, and looking at our thanks to God for life in the light of Christ…. Who’s life is it and who are you living it for? So now what? How do you walk it out? Who are you going to plug into? Will you trust yourself for living like you been doing? Is there a sense of things not going right? Is there a pressing on your heart? Live for Christ, live it out now and live it out loud as possible.

God bless you & may the Holy Spirit lead you
Rev. W. R. Martin Jr.

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