Living as God’s Creation!

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” – Colossians 3:23-24 NIV

All of us ought to know that we have been created to be the image of God and to worship the Lord until the end of the age. The main reason for this is that all of us actually are parts of His creation (Genesis 1:26-31), even though we have been fallen to this world (Romans 5:12-14; Revelation 12:7-9). “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16-17) This means that we have to sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2) and deny ourselves for God’s sake (Matthew 16:24-27) to live for His kingdom (Matthew 7:21) and His glory (Colossians 3:3-4). Otherwise, we sin and eventually we will be thrown into the lake of fire, which is the second death (Revelation 20:7-15) . “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) For example, Adam and Eve, the first couple, made by God, disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and was banished from the Garden of Eden, which is the kingdom of heaven (Genesis 3). We know this because the Lord God had declared, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19) The another reason for this might be we have to do certain priorities to get to the place that we want to be or to do things that we want for the rest of our lives, even though it is hard. For instance, I have to go to schools from this coming February to be a Christian Writer. I absolutely know that this is going to be hard, especially when it comes to essays. However, I am willing to endure them because I know that being a Christian Writer is the will of God for me. Otherwise, I do not have enough knowledge to write Christian books continually. Thus, for these reasons, the Jesus urges,

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14)

Nonetheless, if we commit our lives to Christ, then the Holy Spirit begins to work within us (John 14:15-27) to guide us to become the righteousness of God until the end of the age. Thus, we can enter into the kingdom of heaven at the end of the age (Romans 8:1-13), where all of us are supposed to belong (Genesis 1-2). However, the Spirit of God does not come only when we are having inspirational moments so this means that we have to abide in the Spirit of God (2 Peter 1:3-11), even though we cannot feel it. This is because this is what Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected for; to give us the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-15). “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17)

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:5-14)