Living for God

Most of us, as dedicated followers of Christ, desire to live for Him. We want to understand what that really means. We ask the questions. How can I know God? How can I live for Him? I want to look at one of the answers to these questions today and discover how we can better live for God.

Study God’s Word

Every person I have asked about how to live for God shares this. It is wise counsel. Reading the Bible is listening to God speak to us. In my experience it sometimes breaks down when we fail to understand what God is saying, or He doesn’t say what we want hear. As a child of God adopted into His family, I can become spoiled.

Warren Wiersbe’s notes in The Wiersbe Study Bible address this clearly. What follows is an excerpt commenting on Proverbs 20:24, “A man’s steps are of the Lord; How then can a man understand his own way?”

Most of the situations, opportunities, and decisions the average person encounters in life are dealt with in the Word of God. Consult a topical index to the Bible or even the Book of Proverbs, and we will see how thoroughly Scripture deals with the practical affairs of life. Of course, we can’t expect the Bible to specifically tell us the name of the person we are going to marry, which job we should accept, what car we should buy, or where to spend our vacation, but if we’re sincerely seeking his will, we’ll be ready for Him to guide us by His Spirit and the providential circumstances of life.

God over overruled Joseph’s brothers’ envy and used their evil deeds to build Joseph’s faith and save Jacobs’s family (Gen. 50:20). At the time, nobody could understand what God was doing, but he was working out His perfect plan. In the school of faith, sometimes we don’t know what the lesson is until we’ve passed-or failed- the examination!

Consider the following:

When was the last time you looked back on a time that was difficult and discovered how God was working in your life?

Is God’s plan for your life better than your own?

Take a look at Proverbs 16:3, 16:9.

—Mike