How do I live for God? The simple answer is you are who you are. If you are in the likeness of God, you will act like God. If you are not, no matter how many times you try to reproduce godliness, you will always revert to who you are. To live for God, you must be born of God. You can try to fake it by making yourself keep His commandments and speaking spiritual knowledge, but you will not succeed because it’s not who you are. In your mind, it may appear that you’re serving God righteously, but in many cases, you are your own witness, and what kind of witness wants to testify against himself?
A good tree produces good fruit, and a wrong tree produces bad fruit. If you’re good, you do good works, and if you’re evil, you do evil works. The principle is simple. If you become like Jesus, you act like Jesus. If you are in His likeness, you will do what He does. And what He does is live for God faithfully because He is in the image and likeness of God. The cool part is Jesus doesn’t have to fake it. He acts according to who He is. He doesn’t struggle to keep God’s commandments because He is a keeper of the commandments, and to do anything different would be to go against who He is.
So to answer the question of how to live for God, keep it simple; to live for God is to be like God, and to be like God is to live as God lives.
Let’s look further.
What is it that you think about when asked the question, How do I live for God? I can say with absolute certainty that most people usually fall into the mistake of focusing on their works first when trying to live for God or please Him. If the works prove faithfulness, it will make sense to focus on the works to live for God correctly. But trust me on this one, focusing on the works first is not the point of doing works. Works should not be your first focus of being successful at living for God.
The problem we all face in this matter is knowledge. Most people already know that the best way to live for God is by love. But it’s the knowledge in us that makes us think we already know it; therefore, it’s easy to depend on works to replace true love for God. The thing we underestimate is the nature of the first Adam. This fallen nature is hidden within you to turn you to your works to please God instead of learning to love Him first. Adam’s nature is filled with works of disobedience; therefore, his first instinct is to replace his disobedience with works of obedience. While changing your works from bad to good is the right thing to do, my point is you can’t do it and forget to love God.
After years of experience working with people, including myself, I've learned this pattern. Most people tend to focus on what they can do better to live for Him or please Him instead of loving Him and being changed into His image. That’s why the first question people usually ask me is, what do I need to do to fulfill God’s will in my life? But the real question that you should ask is not what should I do, but who do I need to become?
It’s easy to start off doing the opposite of what Jesus did. You try to keep the commandments while in your heart you’re still a lawbreaker who lives by the flesh. No wonder you fail at being obedient. You are not changed yet. You’re trying to act like someone you’re not.
Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments”. John 14:15. Then He said later that “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love”. John 15:10.
These sayings teach us that loving Him helps you keep the commandments, and keeping the commandments helps you continue to love Him. They work together in unity, but you will struggle to keep the commandments without loving Him first. To love Him first, you have to change from who you are now. To love Him is to return to your first love and do the first works by love. This change is the basis for this teaching. We have forgotten that works have to be accompanied by our love for God. If both do not work together, we will continue to try to live for God only by works, and that way will always be the wrong way. The answer is for you to be made new so that you can live for Him with your works without them being the works of the flesh.
If you look at the Ten Commandments, you can see what you need to do or don’t do to manifest your love for Him. Even the New Testament is filled with the instruction of godly works. Works that you should be doing to please Him. But because of Adam’s need to cover his nakedness after he sinned, it is your natural instinct to say, give me something to do to prove that I love God and that I am faithful to Him. When Jesus said “If you love Me, keep My commandments,” the mind immediately goes to keeping the commandments before it goes to loving God. In his teaching, the apostle James also got in on this thought by saying, “faith without works is dead”. Both involve doing works, but they should always follow love and faith, not lead them.
Loving God first and receiving a change of identity is the right way to live for God.
Trying to do the commandments before you focus on loving Him is a flawed system that will continually fail you. That’s not to say that starting with works is entirely wrong, it’s just that there are greater seductions in that way to cause you to stay focused on the flesh. You can see this in the New Testament and how it failed the Pharisees that lived by the law of God. They started with works, and when Jesus appeared to them, they rejected Him by staying in their works and not allowing Him to reveal a better way to them. The point is, living for God is by love. Your works establish your passion for Him, but working without love is just your gratification and justification to feel like you’re living for Him correctly.
It was never God’s intent just to put you in works so that you would be pleasing to Him. If it were, it would be no different than making you a slave who has no real identity except being a slave. Work, work, work! That’s not God’s desire for you. He desires to give you a name and an identity in Him, a place in His family, and His kingdom. If all you focus on is the works that you must do and the commandments you must keep, He will never really be a part of you, and you will never be a part of Him. When people ask me how to do something or what it is they need to do, the question is usually looking for the works to satisfy the desire to cover themselves of their sins. This type of thinking is backward and is a frustrating cycle of guilt and sorrow because you can’t continue acting like someone you’re not and think you're ok. To be changed into the likeness of God is your answer. If you continue only in works, then your inability to be a true child of God will reveal itself, and you will give up and condemn yourself. Instead of asking what you need to do to please God, you question who you need to be to please Him.
The question is not what, but who?
Imagine how you would grow in the Spirit if your focus were on who you need to be instead of what you need to do. We often try to do things that are not our nature to do. But if you were to become someone, who by nature practices the works of God, then you would not have to strive to do the works; they would be the actions of who you are. That’s being real.
The real you is what will manifest anyway. The devil acts like the devil because he’s the devil. Even when he transforms into an angel of light, he is still the devil and can only deceive those weak in the truth. The Pharisees in the Bible always worked hard to keep the commandments of God. But then Jesus came along and revealed that their hearts were wicked and actually of their father the devil. They always use the commandments to be seen of men and gain the advantage. Keeping the commandments didn’t help them because they did not love God. They are great examples of how doing commandments become just a work of the flesh.
Why do we frustrate the grace of God by thinking that we can live for God without being changed into His likeness? It’s a backward way of thinking, and it cannot get you into heaven. Works before identity is the crazy idea of faking it until you make it. But identity before works is the proper way to be faithful and do all the works of God.
The solution of living for God is easy. Don’t ask what you need to do or why you need to do it until you know who you need to be. If you find out who you are, then you will know exactly what you need to do and why you are doing it.
Note: Sometimes, works might need to come first. I will address the question of “why start with works?” in another post.