(II Corinthians 5: 1 – 21)
STEPS TO LIVING FOR GOD: The five points discussed earlier are as follows:
1. We need to know who we are, 2. Activate the spirit of God, 3. Depend on His grace, 4. Walk by faith and not by sight, and 5. Be heaven minded. 6. Present your body as a living sacrifice (Romans 12: 1 – 2):
We must daily present our body to God as an offering. A sacrifice is
something of value we give to God in order to honor Him because He is
more valuable. Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice on the cross of
Calvary because of our value to God. By offering ourselves to God we are
letting Him know that He is of more value to us than ourselves.
7. Know the nature of God: Although God is Love, and He is good, He is also a Consuming fire. Hebrews 12: 28 – 29 say “Wherefore
we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace,
whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For
our God is a consuming fire”. Paul said, “knowing therefore the terror of The Lord, we persuade men”
(II Cor. 5:11). We serve a Holy God and He will not compromise His
standard of holiness because of us. His eyes are too pure to behold
iniquity (Hebrews 1:13).
8. Be a living Letter: In II Cor. 3: 1-2, Apostle Paul told the believers at Corinth “ye are our epistle written in our heart, known and read of all men.”
An epistle is a letter and Apostle Paul wrote many of them in the Bible
including the one to the Corinthians. What this means is that our lives
must be lived in such a way that those who do not have access to the
Bible will be able to read our lives and still see Christ in
us.
9. Die to Self: To live for God, we must die to self. John 12:24-25 say “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He
that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this
world shall keep it unto life eternal”. Apostle Paul said in Gal. 2:20 “I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me: and 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”.
10. Love God and live for Him: The love that God has
for us made Jesus to die on the cross of Calvary. 2 Cor. 5:15 say that
because Christ died for all of us, those of us who are alive should no
longer live our lives for ourselves but out of love live for Jesus who
died for us and rose again.