are you living for God or the world?
Something that God has made me ask myself lately is this: Am I living for Him, or am I living for the world?
For so long, I allowed the world to dictate how I lived. And I thought that years after I became a Christian, I was finally on the right track. That I was putting to death my flesh, picking up my cross, and saying no to the world but God opened my eyes to something I didn’t even realize was the world: my job.
For years, I was fine with what I was doing. I could tolerate doing work that had nothing to do with God. I accepted the abuse from customers, coworkers, and everything else for a paycheck because I thought this was what I had to do. But slowly but surely, as I got closer to God, the disconnect started. I could see that not only was I not doing all that I could for God. I was enabling the works of the flesh. I had yoked myself to darkness. I had yoked myself to mammon.
The creative and spiritual gifts that God gave me were buried under the world’s love of shoes, shirts, and promo codes. Even when I myself had no love for these things, there I was promoting and pushing and furthering people’s love for them. I was letting my job conform me into its image. And when I realized that, I knew I had to make a change.
And that change was making a true, eternal impact in people’s lives, an impact that led them to heaven. A change that put God first in every area of my life. A change where money didn’t control me anymore. So I prayed to God and asked Him to get me out of my job, and He did. After lots of twists, turns, ups, and downs, here I am now committing myself to fully living for God and bringing Him the glory like He deserves with the gifts that He gave me. Planting seeds into the world, into people, that He can increase.
I am living Matthew 6:25-34 in real time. I am walking the narrow way, no matter how stormy it looks, because I understand that God is worth it, that people need to be saved. And because now I see work is God’s gift to us from the beginning, that it belongs to Him, and that by working for Him I can truly bring Him glory (Genesis 2:15, Colossians 3:23-24, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Matthew 5:16).
With all that talk of work, one thing that can’t be neglected is rest, or how often we labor. This is seen in the fourth commandment:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:8-11 NKJV).
I go into more reasons why Sabbath is still a thing here, but to make it simple, just like all the other commandments we have to follow this one. And that includes the days in which we labor. God wants six days of diligent labor from us, and He wants us to rest after we do so. And I can attest to the fact that after truly working for Him, resting for Him, and surrendering to Him, I have been given peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7).
And one last thing that has to be brought up, no matter how controversial it is: women are not meant to have authority over men in the workplace, nor are they supposed to teach men (unless God makes the exception). Paul was clear in 1 Timothy 2:12-14. The most common argument is that it’s fine if the job/teaching position is “secular,” but there is no secular/sacred divide.
As Christians, we are the temple for the Holy Spirit 24/7. Our faith and obedience to Christ does not go out the window because we walk into a building devoid of love for Him. The roles of men and women are rooted in creation. They will never be cultural. It doesn’t matter how the times change. God does not change.
And don’t forget, God is our boss. We work for Him, even if someone else is signing those checks.
So my questions for you are:
Are you living for God or the world? (Matthew 6:24)
Do you know the Word, or do you know tradition? (Matthew 15:8–9)
Are you fully using the gifts God gave you for His glory, or are they being buried, or used for your glory or the glory of the world? (1 Peter 4:10–11, Matthew 25:24–28)
Are you doing everything you can to lead people to Christ and build up the body of Christ with your gifts? (Romans 15:2)
Are you laboring for Him six days a week and resting on the seventh? (Exodus 20:8-11)
Truly reflect on those questions, examine yourself for the answers. If you don’t like the answers, go to God, repent, and ask Him for the knowledge, wisdom, and strength to truly live for Him in this fallen world. In doing so, you can start to store up treasures in heaven, instead of losing the chance to spend eternity with God (Matthew 25:30, Ephesians 5:5, Galatians 5:19–21, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, Hebrews 6:4-6).
