So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31, NIV)
I was getting ready to play in our club championship the other day and was wrestling with how to reconcile my very deep desire to win and God’s sovereignty over my life. How are we supposed to approach God about our desires for worldly success? Does God care about those kinds of things in our life? Can we keep our spiritual integrity in the heat of the battle to win? Will we be disappointed and angry if we have failed to accomplish what we set out to do?
Our verse today gives us pretty clear direction on how to proceed with living our lives. Everything that we do is to be done for the glory of God.
God is very interested in everything we do and uses all of it to help us grow and mature into the people he wants us to become. There is no separation in his mind between our spiritual life and our secular life. God sees our life as a continuous action and makes no distinction between what we consider to be holy acts and those things we view as more mundane and less important. We are told to treat our entire life and everything we do, no matter how small, as an act of worship. God can be glorified on the golf course, in the kitchen, in the park with our kids, at our job, and alone with him in the morning when we seek his face in quiet meditation.
Does that mean we will win and achieve earthly success? The Scriptures indicate that we will have much earthly success if we submit to his sovereign purposes for our life. We won’t win all the time, but we will be blessed with his peace and joy in the midst of the struggle. We will learn from both winning and losing, and only God knows which thing is best for us at any particular point in our growth toward perfection in him. We must be willing to accept that his purposes supersede ours and still find purpose and peace in the struggle. We can be disappointed in our performance but grateful for the fact that we are healthy enough to enter the contest. We can be ecstatic in victory but should recognize that our ability to win is entirely dependent on his life within us. We can do nothing in our own strength and all our crowns should be laid at his feet. All of our life is a gift from him. Every act of our life should be an act of worship. Our achievements are not accomplished in our strength but through his strength and sovereign grace.
We are blessed above all people when we know that God loves us without reservation. Jesus laid down all the glory that was his, to live as one of us. He gladly bears our burdens. The least we can do is to take the life and talents he has given us and lay them down at his feet. Without him we can do nothing, but with him we can do all things. Win or lose, he has our back and we can count on the fact that his purposes for our life are being accomplished if we dedicate every act to his glory.
—
Linda Ballard
April 9, 2015
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