Consecrated to God's Service

Introductory questions to chew

"Likewise reckon..." -- how do I go about doing this today?

Is there any sin I'm allowing to dominate my thinking and doing?

Whose servant am I?

And with what kind of passion and energy?

What fruit am I bearing?

What if you weren't a Christian?

If you were a non-Christian, how would you live your life? I would throw myself into sin and the world with a passion. Let me list a few things I would do:

• join the United States Air Force
• write a novel
• become a chess grandmaster
• buy a Corvette, a Gold Wing motorcycle, and a speed boat
• design and build my own house
• play the lottery
• seduce a few women
• learn karate
• invest in gold
• travel for the sake of seeing new places and people
• subscribe to Penthouse or Playboy
• co-syndicate with Rush Limbaugh!

But praise God, I am not a non-Christian!! I have no intentions of doing any of the above. I would stoop to none of them. My purpose is to live for the King and the Kingdom. I cannot see any of the above fitting into such a purpose in my life. Is my flesh dead to all these things? Likely to some, surely not to others. But what difference does it make whether it is or isn't? Notice these verses:

"...How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Romans 6:2).

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1).

"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit" (Romans 8:5).

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Romans 8:12-13).

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16).

My friend, I challenge you to set Kingdom values in your life. Determine what you want to accomplish for Christ and the Church. Then throw your life into it with a passion! The Bible also says that:

"...As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness" (Romans 6:19).

How do I not live for myself any longer?

The first step, of course, is to surrender to Jesus as Lord and Savior, confessing your sin to Him in full repentance and acceptance of His death for you. In doing so, you also believe that "they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves" (2 Corinthians 5:15). Hence the question -- How do I not live for myself any longer?

The short answer really is quite short: Live for Jesus! The following verses bring out difference facets of the diamond of Christian living.

"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit...to be spiritually minded is life and peace" (Romans 8:5,6).

"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:19,20).

"I am crucified with Christ...Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1).

"Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Romans 6:13).

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1).

"And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus..." (Colossians 3:17).

"But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation" (1 Peter 1:15).

"Now the God of peace...Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 13:20,21).

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).