What Is My Job?

(excerpt from Desperate Dependency by J. Kirk & Melanie D. Lewis)

Perhaps you have been inundated with all the lists that you need to check off in order to be a good Christian. You want to do right, but you don’t know how. If we allow God to be in control of our lives, what is our job?

Bottom line? It is our job to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Sorry, but I can’t give you a checklist on that one, any more than I can give you a checklist that verifies that you are doing a good job as a husband or a wife. Sure, we may have expectations for our relationship with our spouse like, “Tell me you love me at least once a day”; “Take out the trash”; “Have dinner on the table at 6:00”; “Bring home a paycheck that will pay the bills”; and so forth. But if your spouse could place a checkmark by each of those tasks, does that guarantee a close relationship?

In Mark 12 the Sadducees and Pharisees were debating about all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law. There were 613 commands in the Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy). One of the teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (12:28 NLT). Restated, “Can You please explain what we’re supposed to be doing?”

Jesus answered, “The most important command is this: ‘Listen, people of Israel! The Lord our God, he is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God. Love him with all you heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second most important command is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ These two commands are the most important commands.” (Mark 12:29–31 ICB)

Paul describes our job from another perspective: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31 NKJV).

When we are desperately dependent, our eager search for truth fosters a looming desire to know the heart and mind of God. “Fear of the LORD is the foundation of wisdom. / Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment” (Prov. 9:10 NLT). Prayer, Bible reading, and church attendance are ways to connect to God. But God did not design these disciplines as an obligation to be completed as a part of our daily routine. Prayer, for example, is the avenue whereby we can talk to God and communicate whatever is on our hearts. We don’t need to merely talk to ourselves throughout the day, because we have the privilege of interacting with Him at any given moment for any given reason. “Never stop praying” (1 Thess. 5:17 NLT). With eager anticipation we can embark on each new encounter with Him because it affords us the privilege of maturing into Christlikeness. There is no greater goal in life than receiving from His hand what God intends for us to enjoy.

As we live lives that are desperately dependent on Christ, the resulting connection will magnify the Lord. Realizing that our central focus of life is to make Him look wonderful, the dross of the world falls away. Our unified adventure with God supplies purpose and meaning to life. C. S. Lewis wrote, “But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

How can you apply these verses to your life?
“And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

“Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority” (Col. 2:6–10 NLT).