We have dealt with the questions of ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where are we going?’ We are sinners whose sin, bad decisions, mistakes, bad attitudes and behavior, has created a rift between us and God and only God is able to repair it. He became flesh and died on the cross on our behalf so that He could give us His righteousness and eternal life. We who believe, who have committed our lives to Jesus, will have eternal life in Heaven. That is who we are and where we are going.
Salvation is not just a one-time experience, but a life-long journey. Why doesn’t God just call us home the moment we are saved? There are reasons we can understand and some we will never understand. First, God wants to make you to be more like Jesus in this lifetime. It takes time to grow up spiritually just as it does physically. Second, He wants to use you to touch the lives of the lost and to bring them to Him. And third, He wants to be glorified in our life.
Doesn’t that seem a little egotistical of God, to want us to brag on Him? to praise Him? Not when you realize that when you live in a way that is consistent with how God created you, you are bringing Him glory. For instance, if you drove your tractor ten miles into town to pick up a loaf of bread, people would say you were crazy. A tractor wasn’t built for trips into town for bread. But if they saw you hauling bales of hay or plowing a field with your tractor, they would think you knew what you were doing with the tractor. When we live according to God’s plan for us, we are fulfilling our life purpose. Life has more meaning, is more fulfilling for us, and God gets the glory when others come to know Him because of you.
Paul said in Philippians 3:7 ff. – “But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
Paul wanted his life to be completely subjected to the Lordship of Jesus. The most important thing to him was living for Jesus. How about you? Do you take your Christian life casually feeling that you have your ticket to Heaven? Do the concerns and activities of the world tend to draw your commitment away from Christ? Do you tend to negotiate a better deal with God? Today, seek His face!