“And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God?” 1 John 5:3-5 ESV
Before I became a Christ Follower, I thought that Christians were boring and missed out on all of the cool things we sinners got to enjoy. In fact, when I surrendered, I made a mental list of all the things I would have to stop doing. No cursing, drinking, smoking, watching secular movies, listening to rap music, etc. I was overwhelmed and thought how tough life would be without those things.
But God revealed himself to me and rescued me when I thought my life was over. I was determined to give up my sinful desires and obey Him no matter how painful it was going to be. However, I soon realized that there were too many things that were trying to separate me from God. I worried that I would fall back into one of those bad habits and fail as a Christian.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
Eventually, one of my first mentors shared Proverbs 3 with me and encouraged me to stop worrying about all of the things that we are not supposed to be doing and start focusing on my personal relationship with God while understanding His grace for us. If we focus on glorifying God and understand His grace, then our sins will be revealed to us and we will be naturally drawn to let them go in order to start truly enjoying life through Him!
Living FOR God means that we will find true joy in everything that we do when we understand our purpose for living and knowing our eternal destination. We replace bad habits and addictions for a new life that is more exciting and fulfilling for us and glorifying to God. Essentially, we will not be forced to give up these bad habits, but rather want to replace them with more rewarding, life giving, life changing, pleasures.
This does not mean that we do not want to do the things that we used to desire or that we will not slip and fall into old habits as Christians. I have made quite a few mistakes since I surrendered my life to Christ, but my love for God did not change and He revealed those mistakes to me at the proper time and my love for Him gave me victory over those desires. Unfortunately, I expect to make more mistakes in my life and I pray that God will use those mistakes to strengthen my faith and glorify His name through them and to whomever He chooses.
As Christ followers, we still struggle, BUT we have peace even during our struggles because we know and understand our purpose for living and our eternal destination.
God created all things and wants us to enjoy them so that we can understand how great He is through them. Football, family vacations, sports, eating, are all good as long as we don’t worship them, but rather thank God for His glorious creations while enjoying them.
Question: How can we know if we are enjoying God’s creations or worshiping them?
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