“Live your best life now. Your life is in your hands. You are the master of your own destiny. Be who you want, do what you want.”
This is the message of the world. For many it feels like a message of freedom and control. To me it seems like a crushing burden. If I am my own god, and I have no one to answer to but myself – that is a lot of responsibility! How do I know if I’m doing it right?! That’s a lot of pressure.
I don’t think any human is meant to handle that kind of pressure. We are creatures, created to live for our Creator. He designed us. He knows who we are. He knows how life is supposed to be lived.
True freedom is living for the Master, and Christ is a good and loving Master. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He came to bring us to himself, into abundant life. He came so that we would no longer have to live for ourselves.
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
Christians have been overcome by the love of Christ. We are controlled by his love because of this: Christ died for all believers, therefore we have all died with him to our sinful nature. He died to set us free from the bondage to ourselves, to sin, to the devil, and to death – so that we would no longer have to live for our fallen, futile selves. Now we are free to live for the God of the universe! Now we live in his love, for his sake. Now we live for the sake of God’s Son who died for us and was raised for us. That is true life!
I can hardly imagine what it would be like to be fully controlled by God’s love and fully live for the Savior who died and rose for me. So often I still feel bound by my own selfish, sinful, worldly desires, but by the Spirit, we are being transformed. Our desires are being conformed to his will. To fully live for Christ means we seek his Kingdom. We submit to his will. We walk in obedience to his Spirit. It means we let go of the fallen hopes of our own agenda, the failed promises of sin, the empty pleasures of this world. It means we serve him, we build his church, we love his people, we go out in grace to a hurting world.
We no longer live for ourselves, because our lives are no longer our own. We live for Christ because we now belong to him.
“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Corinthians 6:19-20
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