What is the key to keeping a balance between living your life, and being dedicated to God?
I believe the answer can be summed up in a few words: Our whole life, no matter what we are doing, should be “dedicated to God.” I would like to quote four scriptures that support this and then give some brief comments.
*Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and THE LIFE WHICH I NOW LIVE IN THE FLESH I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (NASB).
*Romans 12:1 states, “I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you PRESENT YOUR BODIES A LIVING AND HOLY SACRIFICE, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
*1st Corinthians 6:20 reads, “For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
*1st Corinthians 10:31 declares, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
In our first verse the Apostle Paul summed up the Christian’s life, for after one has been saved, our whole life should be devoted to living for the One “who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Some people like to divide up their lives into two different compartments; the SPIRITUAL and the SECULAR. Paul knew that there was but one life to be lived, and that was to “live by faith in the Son of God.” If you are a believer in Christ, you have been “saved by faith” (see Ephesians 2:8); here we see that the rest of your life should be one of “living by faith.”
What is it that gives us the power to live our life in total dedication to God? We have already seen that it is Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross that is the main reason for living for Him. This thought is included in Romans 12:1, but notice how Paul refers to “the MERCIES of God” as a motive to present our bodies (i.e. our LIFE) to God. We learn about some of those mercies in chapters 1-8, such as being JUSTIFIED by God (3:20-5:1), IDENTIFIED with Christ (5:12-6:11; 8:1), INDWELT by the Holy Spirit (8:2-27), and CHOSEN and PREDESTINED by God (8:28-30).
In the last two verses we see our main goal in life is to “glorify God.” Again, our motive for doing so is that we “have been bought with a price.” The more we think of what our Savior endured for us at Calvary, in taking our sins upon Himself and then bearing God’s holy judgment against those sins, the more we will desire to “glorify God in our body.” Add to that the thought that we now BELONG TO HIM.
What we see in our very last verse is so important to lay hold of, for there we learn that we can bring glory to God in EVERYTHING WE DO! Again, we may have a tendency to separate areas of our life into the “secular” and the “spiritual,” and thus we don’t see that we can glorify God even in the “mundane” areas of our life, like eating or drinking. I believe the thought is we should be thinking of our blessed Lord AT ALL TIMES. When we do, our lives will be very practical. When we eat or drink, we will instinctively thank the Lord for providing us with our temporal needs. We will also make sure we aren’t eating or drinking something that is harmful to our bodies. The point is we can bring the Lord into all of the circumstances of our life. Before we speak, we can ask, “Will these words be pleasing to the Lord and helpful to others? If not, we should be silent. Before we go engage in an activity (such as sports or watching television), we should ask ourselves, “Can I do this with the Lord’s approval?” Let’s be clear, the Lord wants us to “enjoy life,” so He doesn’t expect us to refrain from doing our job, going on vacations, attending our children’s school events, etc. But He does expect us to live our lives in dependence on Him and to be assured that whatever we do; we “do all the glory of God.” (313.3) (DO)