How do I live my life for God?

The believer, "through the law," as shown by the apostle Paul, is "dead to the law," that he may "live unto God." He can say, like Paul, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." This is his standing before God, and the result upon his outward conduct should be, as with the apostle, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:19-20.) He has no longer the law, but Christ, for his standard. To live Christ, that is, to reproduce as it were the life of Christ in our own, is true Christian walk. Christ always walked in the Spirit, and if we are walking in the Spirit we "shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," but shall bring forth those fruits of the Spirit - that "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," which adorn in such rich clusters the life of the blessed Lord. (Gal 5:20-23.) It is impossible to gather grapes from the thorns of the old nature. Christ is the true vine, the one stock from which fruit for God can be brought forth. Only as we are branches abiding in Him can we bear fruit like His own; only thus is it possible for us "so to walk even as He walked." (John 15:5; 1 John 2:6.)

God has come down that we might know the whole story for ourselves in Christ. Love coming to us, and righteousness going to God. What we have to seek in everything is to glorify God - a thousand circumstances in life, but only one Object. The question is, whether we are living Christ in the ordinary circumstances of life - in honest toil and labour, in the calling in which we are (though if we cannot abide in the calling with God, we must leave it). Is it the one object of our lives to show forth Christ, to manifest Him in our mortal bodies, to realise more of Him by the power of the Spirit of God - is that where we are? And with thankfulness of heart that He became that Lamb of God, and has given us the Spirit to dwell in us.

Two great correlated truths relate to Christian living — (1) sin dwells in the believer, and (2) grace has overcome the power of sin and provided a way of escape from its tyranny. Many honest and true-hearted believers who desire to live according to God are most anxious to discover some means of avoiding the repeated failures which they deplore. They say: “I have to go again and again to seek pardon for sins, of which I am ashamed. How can I live more consistently?” Yes, by the supply of God's grace, you will be enabled to fashion your life according to the instructions of His word. Simply, the way of faithfulness is the obedience of faith. The same faith that clings to Christ for the forgiveness of sins, must cling to Him for power to obey God even as He obeyed. The secret of a victorious life is the renunciation of self and the determination to do everything by the faith of the Son of God. Looking in faith to Him, sin is suppressed, and holiness attained. The reign of grace in the new life of the believer is “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The Path of Suffering (v. 23-27). The Lord opens His instruction with the words, "If any man will come after Me." Touching words that presume He has gone before and marked out a path for His own, and, drawn by love, that they would seek to tread where He has trod. At the entrance of this path we find these searching words, "Let him deny himself." Men speak of self-denial, and have self-denial weeks, by which they mean denying themselves certain things for a limited period of time to help some benevolent cause. This, however, is the very opposite of denying self, for it rather adds to self-complacency and the exaltation of self. The denial of self is not simply denying ourselves certain things, but the denial of the man that lusts after these. The denial of self is the ignoring of self altogether in order to serve others in love. Such was the path that the Lord ever trod while passing through this world of need. Moreover, as rejected by this world, Christ is in the outside place of reproach, and those who follow Him will find that they too will have to face reproach. Thus the Lord exhorts the one that comes after Him to "take up his cross daily." For the Lord the cross meant not only suffering and shame from the hands of men, but also the far deeper sufferings from the hand of God. He was alone in His sufferings at the hand of a holy God, when made sin; but in His sufferings from men we can in our little measure share, and He has left us the perfect example of such sufferings for we are told to consider Him that "endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God" (Heb. 12:2). We are exhorted "To go forth … to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." Moreover, this reproach is to be taken up "daily." This is a searching word, for it is comparatively easy to make some great sacrifice on some special occasion, but the "daily" acceptance of the path of reproach and suffering for Christ's sake in everyday life calls for great grace. But how is it possible to deny self and accept reproach? Only as we have an object that is greater than self before us. Thus the Lord adds the words, "Follow Me." Furthermore, to follow after Christ must mean the letting go of the present life. Whoever, believer or unbeliever, lives only for the present life, is living a life that he must inevitably lose, for at best it is but a passing life. To have Christ before us, is to live a life that will never pass away: — a life that can be enjoyed now, but will only be known in all its fulness in life's eternal home. Lastly, it is impossible to follow Christ and at the same time walk with the world and seek its advantages. Paul, with Christ as his life, could say, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." Even for the unbeliever what advantage is there in gaining the whole world for a few fleeting years and then to be lost for eternity? For the believer to associate with the world and seek its advantages and honours must mean the loss of all present joy in the Lord, the end of all testimony for the Lord, and the forfeiture of His approval in the day "When He shall come in His own glory and in His Father's, and of the holy angels." Thus to follow truly a rejected Christ will mean, as to this present world, the refusal of self, the reproach of men, the loss of the present life with the world and its advantages.

“If only we exercise a little self denial every day, we shall get on to heaven very comfortably.” What a volume of wholesome practical truth in this brief utterance! The path of self-denial is the Christian's true path. “If any man,” says Christ, “will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). It is not, “let him deny certain things belonging to himself.” No, he must “deny himself,” and this is a “daily” thing. Each morning, as we rise and enter afresh upon the pathway of daily life, we have the same grand and all-important work before us, namely, to deny self.

For an answer to our first question we turn to Romans 8:1-4. "No condemnation" is the fruit of the work of Christ, v. 1. "Life" is the fruit of the work of the Spirit, v. 2. "Condemned sin" is the fruit of the work of God, v. 3. "Walk" is the fruit of believers, v. 4. The sequence here is, what Christ has done, then, what the Spirit has done, then, what God has done, then, what we do. Our walk follows the working of each Divine Person to fit us for the Christian pathway through this world. We are told in v. 4, that walking after the Spirit will enable us to fulfil the righteous requirements of the law. These were summed up by a lawyer and agreed to by our Lord as being, love to God on the one hand and love to one's neighbour on the other. Luke 10:26-28. It means we give to God first what is right in His sight and we do to our fellow being what is right towards him. This is walking by, or in the Spirit. Many details could be gathered from other parts of Scripture but doing always what is right both Godward and manward is the evidence of a believer walking by the Spirit.

God has nothing less for us down here than walking in the steps of His own dear Son. The obedience of Jesus Christ is not a single act, but a life of constant obedience. He was obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. Israel failed grievously as regards the obedience of the law, and God is not seeking from us any legal obedience: but having given us His Spirit He desires us to walk in the power of the Spirit in the steps of Jesus. It is in obedience to God's will that we enter into His mind, and by obedience that we manifest our faith in Him. The truth is only really held in the measure of our obedience to the will of God.

This is the life of faith which we are called to live, — the life of dependence — the life of obedience — the life that Jesus lived perfectly. That blessed One would not move a step, utter a word, or do a single thing save by the authority of the word of God. No doubt He could have turned the stone into bread, but He had no command from God to do that; and inasmuch as He had no command, He had no motive for action. Hence Satan's temptations were perfectly powerless. He could do nothing with a Man who would only act on the authority of the word of God.

It is having Christ always before us, and really walking in the presence of God. The great secret is to be more with God than anybody, and if not, we shall go astray. The moment I get away from the conscious presence of God, self has a certain place; whereas, if I am really in the presence of God, I am nothing. I am more what I am before Him, than what I am in His power for others. You are not competent to discern the will of God if you are not with Him: "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." If power rests upon me, that does not put me in the presence of God as to my conscience or heart. It may be for others, but we have to be before God Himself, or else we shall never keep straight; and for that we must be in the path of God for Him to lead us. I cannot realise God's presence out of the path of His will. The instant we lose the sense of dependence we are in danger. Obedience and dependence, those are the two living principles of the new man. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

But when we have received the word as Mary did in the love of it, and at the feet of Jesus, we none the less but the more need prayer to walk worthily of God, Who called us to His kingdom and glory. And so we find the Lord, as He is seen continually in prayer, teaching His disciples to pray. For the life we receive in Him, as it is of God, so lives in dependence on Him habitually and in obedience of His will made known in His word. Man, as our Lord cited to the tempter, shall not live by bread alone but by every word of God. My meat, said He to the disciples, is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work; and again, As the living Father sent Me and I live (not merely "by" but) on account of the Father; so he that eateth Me, as every true Christian does, even he shall live on account of Me. Christ thus becomes the believer's object and motive. None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live to the Lord; and whether we die, we die to the Lord: whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord's (Rom. 14). And He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to Him Who died for them and rose again (2 Cor. 5).