How to Live for God

Do you want to encourage your pastor? Pray for him.

Those in ministry need God’s comfort, too. In fact, the standards we try to meet make us ask Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2:16).

The work of the gospel is all our work; the line between full-time ministers and lay servants needs to be rubbed out. We are all workers together since God gives a gift to each member of the body of Christ to serve the body. Certainly, some have been given distinct gifts that touch the body as a whole, like the gifts of teaching, pastoring, of service—all useful for the work of the ministry, which is equipping believers to serve.

How are you responding to the grace God has given you? He has showered His goodness and mercy on you and given you gifts to serve. People are watching us—especially in hard times. They gauge the truth of the gospel by what they see in us. Do we tell the truth? Do we respond to each other with gentleness and holiness and honest love? We need genuine love, which the Spirit puts into our hearts.

Even more so should the preacher know his Bible. He should preach “by the power of God” (6:7), which is possible only as he spends time alone with God. Paul summarizes what this looks like by describing situations he had endured and the positive character God produced in him through it.

• Purity—when we’re praised and approved of, and when we’re blamed (beware: flattery harms us more than criticism).
• Patience when we’re slandered and do not retaliate.
• Spiritual understanding when we give out God’s Word, even though we might not be trusted.
• Kindness when we are ignored by the world but known by God.
• Perseverance when we are beaten within an inch of our lives but refuse to die.
• Filled with sorrow (when people rejected the gospel), yet always filled with deep joy in Christ.
• The power of God when we have nothing yet have it all (see 1 Corinthians 3:22-23).

Paul loved the people in Corinth. He wants them to know about this rich life in God. But in his effort to stir their hearts for God, he apparently also stirs up animosity in the hearts of those who hated God and His Word. It’s still true today: If you stand for God, it may cost you dearly.

How we relate to those who don’t know or love the Lord follows. Paul asks the saints at Corinth not to be yoked to unbelievers—don’t be joined together like animals pulling together to work the field. Don’t form a real union with an unbeliever, Paul said, like in a business enterprise, a partnership, a marriage, or a long-term enterprise. Make a clean break from the sins of the flesh. Live separate from the world.

Many Christians already consider themselves separate from the world. They wouldn't think of doing this or of doing that. Yet worldliness creeps into even the best churches and lives. It’s easy to say we love Jesus Christ, to consider ourselves separated unto Him, and still not, in reality, be separate from the world and separated from Him.

Don't be a Christian unless you mean it. Don't say Jesus satisfies you if you’re looking around for something else to fulfill you. If you live a life for God, finding Him to be your greatest joy and satisfaction, you will be the kind of son or daughter who brings honor to the Father. He asks you to come out from the world, to live authentic lives, clean and separate from those who don’t love Him. Then God can have an intimate relationship with you as a Father with a child.

Next: What’s the best way to show how the grace of God is working in your heart?