Ok. So it's no secret that living for Christ in our culture is pretty much super hard. Not only are there distractions galore but sin practically screams at and tempts us from every corner. And I don't just mean music and movies, television and magazines. I mean friends who mean well but only end up condoning and/or encouraging our degenerate nature, family members who subconsciously put God on the back burner to the "American dream," and churches that find it a little too radical to actually preach God's word so instead replace biblical teaching for cheesy, "uplifting," motivational speeches (with a bible verse on the side, of course). I could go on. Everyone knows the list is practically endless. There are teachers who ridicule students for their faith, governments that daily carry out mass infanticide, materialism that tears at our sense of belonging, a culture of comparison that breeds our insecurities, unhealthy peer pressure that pushes us to immoral behavior, and a country that says we are hateful and rude if we have the audacity to claim there is even such a thing as basic as right and wrong.
Who are we kidding?! Living for God the way we are meant to is incredibly hard! Maybe we should just stop trying? Yeah! Just stop trying to live for God! Obviously there's no point? Why is it even worth it?! Welllllllll, actually it is worth it (you didn't think my real advice was to stop living for God did you??). Obviously I don't think we should stop living for God, so why, then, is it worth it? Why is it even worth being the odd one out? The weirdo? The one who cares? Before I answer that I'd like to ask my own question: why is it worth living for all those other things? What so great about being selfish? What's so great about being rich on this earth? What's so great about having sex before marriage or cursing when you're angry? What is so great about listening to music or watching TV that degrades people's worth into mere bodies to be used? What is so great about being just like everyone else?!? To sum it up even better, what is so great about living a life of pleasure for (if you're lucky) 85 years only to be in darkness, and suffering, and pain, separated from God completely for ever and ever and ever after that? That makes no sense and we all know it.
But do you wanna know something even cooler? There is even a better reason to live for God than just the fear of hell and the hope of heaven. John 17:3 reads, "and this is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Eternal life is about KNOWING God. That starts now. So many people always say, "it's not a religion, it's a relationship *insert cheesy smile*," that it actually drives me crazy but there is truth to that. We have the opportunity to know THE God of the Universe. Stop and think about that. Really. Stop reading for a sec and think on what that means. I mean it, stop. THE God of the universe call us to KNOW Him. We can't even imagine what joy this entails. Everything else fades in comparison to Him. It's so easy to get stuck on all of the reasons why it's hard to follow Christ and focus on all of the areas that we are failing to the point that we miss the joy of HIM! God calls us not just to do certain things and not do other things! He calls us to know Him. When that becomes our focus we don't have to try so hard because it just comes. We start to go about our days looking for Him and finding Him and desiring Him more.
Let us not get discouraged in our walk with Christ. His Spirit will help us. We can't make it without Him. Let us be reminded that we are human and frail and we mess up. But let us never stay there. Let us never think that He is not worth it. He is so worth it we can't even begin to comprehend. Sure it's hard but, "I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ... (Phillipians 3:8)" Christ vs. fading pleasure? Christ is worth it every time. :)
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