Living for Jesus in Our Daily Lives

“ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17 NIV)

Yesterday, I asked the question, what difference does Jesus make in your life?  I asked it yesterday as it relates to handling life’s stresses. Today I ask it as it relates to how you live life.  How you study and prepare assignments; how you work as an employee; how you treat others.

For a lot of life, it seems people just want to get through it.  For college students right now, they just want to be done with school.  For those with full-time jobs, they just want to get to the weekend.  For those in difficult relational situations, they just want to move on.  But what is lost in this type of thinking is there is a lot of life contained in these time periods.  I recently made the observation to a student who couldn’t wait for the week to be over, that a normal week is comprised of five days. Thus, if one continually lives for the weekend and coasts through those five days, imagine what that looks like over a lifetime.  Imagine the time wasted!

The difference Jesus should make in our lives, according to Paul, is that every aspect of our lives matters because our lives are lived for Him. We study, write papers, and take exams as though He is our professor. We work at our jobs as though He is our employer. We treat others—our significant other, friends, and strangers—as if it is He with whom we are interacting.  We don’t live for the weekend; we live for Him daily. We don’t go to school just to get by; we go with the desire to do our best. We aren’t in relationships only for what we can get, but in order to bless others.  

Paul says elsewhere that our lives not our own, but that we were bought at a price (I Corinthians 6:19-20).  Thus, if we follow Jesus, we are to live life differently from those who don’t.  Instead of living for ourselves, we live for Him.  And that means how we live out the day-to-day details of our lives.

Today, the question to ask is, how can I best live for Him?  What does that look like for me in how I approach school, work, or relationships?  If you are honest, it will likely look much different than you have been living.

© Jim Musser 2016