How can I live for Christ with EVERYTHING?

[Hepburnette]

Everything. All of it. Every single ounce of my body, mind and soul. Every drop of sweat. Every thought, every word, every decision.

I have no idea how I can achieve such a high level of living for Christ; I desperately want to, you see, but I struggle so much. I am currently reading an amazing book by a lady who learned to live for Christ with absolutely everything, and it's making me thirst for that sort of relationship, but I just can't work it out.

I'm looking for personal advice, not scripture - I've read the Bible. Wash, rinse, repeat, et cetera. I've Googled appropriate scripture to read, written short essays about what that scripture means to me ... I still can't bring myself to live with every part of me being for Christ.

I want to, but I don't know how. I just want to live for Christ...

 

[christian08]

i commend you for your yearning of our Lord sister. it's good that your read a personal account of another. But in a sense, that is her life. Not necessarily yours. You see? each of us is different. and to understand more and more. We ALWAYS study and read and reference back to the Word of God. That's the key, our bread of life. to live everything for Christ, from my experience thus far. is one, recognize it's not about you "working" for it. but that you are resting in His truth and what He has said and done already for us. That's faith, there's not much faith if there needs to be works. BUT, aas in the book of James along with our yearning for the Lord and our faith we will produce natural fruits. The Holy Spirit naturally guiding us. Our walk isn't a once and final thing. we need to LABOR and STRIVE in walking with the Lord. Somedays are better than others. But we always come to the Lord and pray, talk and ask for more through His word and our life in walking with Him. That's all i got for now, seeing i'm about to run my kids to school. hope this helps. P.S. our walk and life in Christ is not on how we or "it" makes us feel, feelings are deceitful and satan can use it against us. But live by the Word of God FIRST, the FACTS first and let the feelings fall behind.

 

[savedbygracebre]

Kinda look at it as God relates to marriage in the bible. God says that the woman shoul obey the man in everything. Women hear that and cry foul(some). But the rest of that part of marriage says the man should love his wife like Christ loves His church and that the husband should be willing to die for his wife if needs be. I'm pretty much sure that most all women would surrender everything for that powerful "sacrificial love" God speaks of! Now how all of this relates is that God is your heavenly Father, who loves you unconditionally, who gave up His own Son to be brutally tortured, and who will never ever forsake you or leave you. He loves you with more love than the husbands h
He commands in scripture to love. When you realize just how strong this love really is for you then the rest will take it's natural order of things. You want have to "try" to please God-it will be something you will strongly desire to do. The rest will take care of itself. I am sure that the author of this book you readstates somewhere of how important God's lve is to her. That is he " secret" so to speak. Hope this helps.

 

[Hepburnette]

I appreciate your responses, but if I'm perfectly honest, neither of you answered me - you've both, instead, gone on tangents about how I need not work for this, how I feel as if I "must" work for this - No. No. No. No. No.

That is not what I said at all. Don't put words into my mouth, and don't assume what I want to hear. I asked my question, and nothing more. I didn't express anxiety about not being able to be 'good enough' or some silly nonsense. I asked because I want to do this, nothing more and nothing less. Want.

I'm sorry if this comes off as callous, but you shouldn't have put words into my mouth, either of you.

 

[Hepburnette]

Quite frankly, I'm disgusted.

 

[ayeess]

Your behavior/responses right now..are not indicative of someone who wants to know/walk with the lord more and more....go talk to god and pray.

 

[singpeace]

I have the same desire as yours. I want it desperately. It is possible to achieve a greater level of service to him, and in more ways than you might imagine... over time, and with discipline, patience, ears to hear, and lots of humility.

But it is not possible for anyone
to live for Christ with every single ounce of body; every drop of sweat, every thought, word, and decision.

He is spirit and we are spirit, but while we're here on earth, we war with our flesh.
Don't beat yourself up, girl. You and I both could get one or two thing absolutely perfect... just to find out later we screwed up big time somewhere else.

 

[childofGod31]

Everything. All of it. Every single ounce of my body, mind and soul. Every drop of sweat. Every thought, every word, every decision.

I have no idea how I can achieve such a high level of living for Christ; I desperately want to, you see, but I struggle so much. I am currently reading an amazing book by a lady who learned to live for Christ with absolutely everything, and it's making me thirst for that sort of relationship, but I just can't work it out.

I'm looking for personal advice, not scripture - I've read the Bible. Wash, rinse, repeat, et cetera. I've Googled appropriate scripture to read, written short essays about what that scripture means to me ... I still can't bring myself to live with every part of me being for Christ.

I want to, but I don't know how. I just want to live for Christ...

Your attitude towards the others who were trying to help really perplexed me. I did not expect such an outburst...

But back to your question (if I understood you correctly, I am not sure now)

Basically, you saw the woman's end result (or progress). Meaning you saw somebody lifting 300 lbs and you are saying that you also want to lift 300 lbs and you don't know how to lift it. Well, you need to start with lifting 10 lbs at first. In other words:

First you need to fall in love with Jesus and then the rest will come. Afterall, when somebody falls in love, then they are willing to do stuff for the other person.

How do you do that? By setting aside time for Him daily (not necessarily stopping everything, but finding the time where you could think of Him).

When you get into God more by thinking of Him daily, you will grow in your love for Him. Afterall, we can only love the person if we KNOW the person. Read the Bible as though you want to know HIM. Not about Him, but Him. In other words, not His actions, but try to read His intentions, His attitudes, His thoughts that provoke the actions.

Christ is a person. He loves it when we talk to Him, when we fellowship with Him. He loves it when we love Him with our thoughts and feelings.
He feels our love. He will respond to you and will start to communicate with you at some point. And you will grow deeper in love and then somewhere along your journey you would be willing to live for Him.

You could read some of these articles, they might be helpful:

Bible 101 • View forum - Christian Walk

 

[LilLamb219]

Everything. All of it. Every single ounce of my body, mind and soul. Every drop of sweat. Every thought, every word, every decision.

I have no idea how I can achieve such a high level of living for Christ; I desperately want to, you see, but I struggle so much. I am currently reading an amazing book by a lady who learned to live for Christ with absolutely everything, and it's making me thirst for that sort of relationship, but I just can't work it out.

I'm looking for personal advice, not scripture - I've read the Bible. Wash, rinse, repeat, et cetera. I've Googled appropriate scripture to read, written short essays about what that scripture means to me ... I still can't bring myself to live with every part of me being for Christ.

I want to, but I don't know how. I just want to live for Christ...

You cannot. We cannot. None of us. None of us can do something perfect, surrender to him, give our hearts perfectly to him, etc... WE CAN NOT!!!

Why can't we???

Because we still live in these sinful bodies!

Yes, we have been washed clean and have robed ourselves in Christ's righteousness, but we still sin. We still are selfish. We still put ourselves before the Lord at times. Not every time, for He is changing us. But we cannot perfectly have that relationship that we desire as Christians until He comes again and our sinful bodies are changed into the new ones that we long for.

Don't let others deceive you. Don't think anyone else can perfectly give himself to God. Only Christ Jesus was perfect, so we look to Him for our righteousness and give thanks that He died in our place on the cross and we are now reconciled to God having our sins forgiven.

 

[Peripatetic]

I have no idea how I can achieve such a high level of living for Christ

The problem with that approach comes in the words "I can achieve". If you place your focus on your every action, two bad things will happen: 1. You will fail to meet this goal and feel badly about coming short. Eventually you'll burn out. 2. Your obsession will become "me" centered instead of the God centering that you so desire. In other words, in trying to do what you suggest, you will only achieve the opposite.

Your preoccupation should be with God Himself, not with each action in your life. Get to know Him, work on your relationship, and spend time with Him every day. But find balance in your life too. Enjoy what life offers. You want the Holy Spirit to help you know what is acceptable to God, but not everything has to be about Him.