1 Corinthians 10:24
“Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”

So, I read this this morning and have a few thoughts on it.

As Christians, it is now our charge to live totally for others. First for God, and subsequently, as stated here, for those we are around—our “neighbors”.

Part of why this hit me so poignantly this morning is because of a book I’m reading right now. I’m reading Chasing Daylight by Erwin McManus. It’s really an awesome book. I can’t quite say enough good things about it. I can’t go into tons of detail, because he says it all much better than I could, but one of the big themes in the book is something like this: God has changed our hearts and given us passion and desires that align with His passion and desires so that we would pursue those things. Therefore, if God doesn’t say, “no”, then go and change the world with the things he’s laid on your heart.

He was reflecting on what gives us the ability to do this, and he wrote something like this (sorry, I don’t have the book with me right now and can’t quote it exactly): “I want what I give to define my life.”

I’ve been really thinking about this a lot. I want what I give to be what defines me. I don’t want to seek to gain anything, but rather only to give. I will gain a great deal, I am confident, because God promises it. But where do my goals lie? In gaining or in giving? One will breed a productive life, the other will hold us back from finding true life.

Take a peek at Luke 17:33 “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.”

Today as I was reading in the word, I came across this passage in Psalms that is a really great servant’s prayer:

Pslam 90:16-17
¹⁶Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
¹⁷Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!

Galatians 5:13-14 says,
“For you have been called to live in freedom—not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. ¹⁴For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (NLT)

I think, as a Christian who is seeking to live in God’s grace, it can be easy to forget why we have been freed from the law. Sometimes, we can focus on the fact that we are free, and forget that we must respond in a way fitting to the gift we have received. We have not been freed to go live however we want to—that would be quite ungrateful. We have been freed so that we can love and serve those around us. I don’t fully understand how this works, but it makes me excited to trust God to show me as I attempt to do it.