How to live for Christ

Summer time is a good illustration of how we can live for Christ.

Think about it: You step outside on a warm evening, and suddenly you're in the middle of a swarm of mosquitos and other insects. (No worries abt this situation unless you're living in yishun, sembawang or marsiling)So you naturally start trying to swat them away, and the more you swat, the more of them there seem to be. So you stand there and keep on swatting at them, an absolutely useless exercise, and eventually retreat inside to keep them away. It would be so much easier, of course, to put on mosquito repellent, before you go outside. But sometimes such an obvious step becomes only an afterthought for a lot of us.

But how many of us are like this spiritually? How many of us are always on the defensive, always trying to swat away the problems brought upon us by Satan, the world and our own weaknesses but not taking the first and only step that can give us the upper hand? How many of us are so caught up in uselessly and endlessly trying to swat away problems and temptations that we're just surviving, and not really living? How many of us work up such a sweat running in place spiritually that we run ourselves into exhaustion but never go anywhere? It doesn't have to be like that. But the only way we can live--truly live, not just breathe and take up space--is if we're plugged into a daily relationship with Christ.

I spent a bit of time recently looking at Luke 4, where Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days in the desert and was then tempted by the devil. Forty days without food would make anyone ravenously hungry. But 40 days plugged into conversation with the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit empowered Jesus to do more than just swat away Satan's temptations--He hit them out of the ballpark. Satan couldn't touch Jesus, because Jesus relied only on the power of God. Verse 13 of Luke 4 says "When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time."

How many of us are just timidly standing there swatting and whining at the devil and the world to just leave us alone instead of doing what we need to do to take the upper hand? I think it's hard for the Lord to use us if we're so distracted by things that don't matter that we can't or won't listen to Him telling us what to do? The Lord wants us to worry about all the things that are keeping us from hearing Him, but to focus on Him first and foremost so that everything else will end up where it should. (Matthew 6:33) Unless you'd rather stand outside and swat at mosquitos instead of doing what it takes to fight back. Are you content with just surviving spiritually? Or are you ready to really live for Christ? What will it take for you to get to where He wants you to be for Him to use you where you are in the way He desires?