Have you ever seen a teenager trying to do some crazy stuff in his life and when he got caught by his parents doing it, he justifies it by saying, “This is my life. I can do whatever I want with it!”
It is funny but interestingly, this is what we look like as well sometimes when we try to live our life against the will of our Father in Heaven.
God gave us life. As written in Genesis 2:7, in the beginning when he created man, He made him a living being by breathing life into him. He is our Creator, and it is fair to say that we indeed belong to God; It could really be as plain and simple as it is. However, along with the life that God gave us, He also included with it the freedom to choose; our freewill.
And most of the time, whether consciously or unconsciously, the choices that we make along with that freedom make us live like we are not His children, but of the world.
Just like how the first creations were tempted, the enemy is bringing a lot more temptations and sins to us, especially with everything almost at the tip of our hands because of technology. So, it is important to be wise in discerning if the life that we are living is still for God, or if we are just trying to live our lives by using our own wisdom and understanding.
What is Life Away from God?
It is meaningless
If you read the book of Ecclesiastes, from the twelve chapters of the book can be found what it looks like to have achievements, riches, and fame, yet the writer describes life as “meaningless,” like chasing after the wind.
What is it like chasing the wind? You can never really hold it, you can just feel it. You can never really see it, let alone keep it. There is no end to it, the only end to chasing the wind is death, and that is what life without God looks like. We keep on chasing things that are ephemeral, things that are mere passing to which we can never bring with us to heaven.
The writer knows it so well. Why? King Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, he was known as the wisest king, he has all the riches and he has a lot of achievements, yet at the end of the book, his conclusion was, the only way to live is to live for God, remembering Him and following His commandments. Other than that, everything else is meaningless.
It is deserving of wrath
The second chapter of Ephesians shows us some light on how it feels when we are made alive in Christ. Although the first part of it is a picture of how it is to live when we follow the ways of the world, and the way it is described is, it is by nature deserving of wrath. (Ephesians 2:3)
Our flesh is weak; we easily cave into it. And when we try to live our own life following the weak cravings of our flesh, the sins don’t just show through physical evidence, it even starts from our thoughts. The mind also produces unhealthy ideas and desires that are never pleasing to the eyes of God. Without Christ dying on the cross, our lives are also doomed to destruction.
It leads to death
If you’re thinking that this makes no sense since we all know that we are all going to die at some point in our lives, you are completely wrong. When we are enslaved to sin, it causes us to be far from God, which leads to spiritual death.
That is entirely the reason why God gave His son, for the wages of our sin is death. (Romans 6:23) Yet, if we still deny the fact that Christ died for us, we are now bringing death into our own doors as the payment for the sins that we made, instead of simply accepting the Savior that God sent to us.
How do we offer our lives to God?
Follow His commandments
When you understand the commandments, it will be easy to follow it. In fact, if you just understand the love of God, you will be able to follow the commandments. The kind of love that Corinthians 13 is describing is a love that will never hurt someone you love, and the more that we understand how God loves us so much despite all of the things that we have done, the more that we will be able to do what the commandments are telling us.
Offer your bodies as a pleasing sacrifice
You don’t need to be crucified on the cross to be a living sacrifice. It’s as simple as taking care of your body, and living in purity and peace with others. Let the things that you say bring hope, faith, and love to those who hear them. Worship God with the work that you do, and a lot more simple things.
Deny yourselves and take up your cross
As mentioned before, sin separates us from God. For us to follow Him, we need to be more cautious and sensitive to how the enemy is tempting us. And we must consciously deny ourselves of these things that the world is offering. Yes, this should be something that we are intentional in doing. It’s a constant decision to follow God.
Final Thoughts
The truth is, you can never say that you have no god in your life. When we choose to live selfishly and try to control things in our own way, we make ourselves the god of our life. Or sometimes, it’s not yourself but sins are somehow enslaving you. If your flesh craves sexual affection and you yield to it, you are a slave to lust, and lust becomes your god, and with many other things that imprison us, it becomes the god of our life. Things like money, fame, and power. All of these give us false freedom, thinking that life is great because we have them, but there’s one thing in common among all of these, it all separates you from belonging to our Creator.
God only wants what’s best for us. God does not want you to suffer nor to make this life miserable for you. In fact, we can somehow say that God wants us to have the ‘YOLO’ attitude. ‘You Only Live Once’ means that you just got one life so make the most out of it. But not in the sense of trying everything and being risky while you can. Instead, make the best of this life following Him since this would determine whether we are going to have eternal life or eternal damnation.
He had given us everything that we will need for us to live as His children, and much more things than what we needed. With a promise of hope and a future, with an abundant life offered in front of us where we lack nothing, and with eternal life awaiting for us, isn’t this enough assurance and security to let God take over the life that we have?
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