Living the Life

Everyone's probably heard of the verse 1 Corinthians 10:31
"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

This verse was sort of a 'motto' or a key verse for my basketball team about two years ago. In general, I thought it was a pretty hardcore creed showin what us Christian peeps was all about.
But, I really had no clue what was buried under the simple meaning I understood. Honestly, I didn't really know what the scripture meant. Seriously...how do you eat a chicken wing to God's glory? How do you show other people you have Christ by gulping a grape soda?
I didn't know, but I interpreted it in my immature mind that it basically meant do you all you can to show others that Christ is your Lord.
There were a couple of things I, well frankly, got wrong.

The first thing I'm going to show you is that giving Glory to God doesn't have to be in front of other people.
Every time I thought about that verse, the first thing that came to mind was Atheists, maybe a hamburger, and Mormons. Because after all, they were the ones that needed to see how much God deserved, and how much he changed me. But y’know, there’s also that one verse that says:

Matthew 7:5
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

If you’ve ever read the ‘Gospel Primer’ by Milton Vincent, you know what it is to preach the gospel to yourself. The importance of preaching the gospel to yourself, and continually, at that, is so great, that it is an essential part of the Christian faith.

C.J. Mahaney taught a sermon at our church a couple weeks back about talking to yourself, specifically in troubling times. He showed that our soul is having a constant conversation with us. But our soul doesn’t often talk about the gospel. It tells us how poor we are and how uncomfortable something might be to do, it tells us what we want to hear. But no, this is not what we need to listen to. Mr. C.J. talked about how we need to bounce back and tell our soul the gospel, not how hard it is on us.

Paul Tripp says on this topic:

“No one is more influential in your life then you are, because no one talks to you more then you do”

If we ourselves are the most influential in our lives, should we be constantly feeding ourselves the truth about God? We need to challenge, rebuke and command our souls to trust in Him.

The second thing is essentially, the more we preach the gospel to ourselves, the more it shines out to other people.

Have you ever thought about how the more inviting and enjoyable you are, the more people will want to be around you? And have you ever thought that the more different you are (in a Christian way), the more people will notice you are not like them?

I always wondered why no one asked me if I was a Christian or not. It happened in the Christian movies, and in Adventures in Odyssey tapes, but it never happened to me. What was going on? Did people just not actually do that in real life? Was I just never around non-Christians?

The answers to both of those questions is no. It wasn’t something wrong with them, it was something wrong with me. Even to my Christian friends, I wasn’t as enjoyable because I didn’t live like one. I always wanted to talk about TV shows. I didn’t really care about God, what they had taught in Sunday School, or about the seniors who the youthgroup visited at the nursing home. I didn’t care about the gospel.

It’s funny, how this whole thing is circular, you know?

I won’t be able to worship, I won’t be able to evangelize, I won’t be able to live my life to the glory of God, in anyway. It’s not just about worship, you cannot do anything for God unless you live it for him everyday







Reccomended Reading: “The Spirit of Depression” – Martyn Lloyd Jones