The more we study the Scriptures and spend time in prayer and worship with the Lord, the more we realize who we are. We want to know the truth, and we don’t seek God’s hand for blessings, but rather, we seek His face to know Him. As we give ourselves to God, we begin to realize that our life is not our own; we belong to Him.

God promised Abraham that his seed—his descendents—would belong to Him. His grandson Jacob had 12 sons and each one became a tribe and each tribe should have gone forth to produce millions of people who love God. But as we know, sin controls this world and most of Abraham’s natural descents have rejected Christ or else live a life indifferent to Christ. And although Jesus came to die for those descendents, He also provided salvation for those of us who are not Jewish, who are Gentiles.

The Jewish people—the Hebrews who are Abraham’s natural descents—and the Gentiles—the rest of the world that served pagan gods—can now both come to the cross and receive the salvation of Christ. They can both know Jesus as their Messiah, and their King! The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that all those who come to Christ become “new creatures in Christ”. Now there is no difference in our relationship with God because whether we’re a man or a woman, a Jew or a Gentile, rich or poor, we are all His children!

We will continue to live in this world until God calls us home, but we are to remember that we are not “of” this world any longer. Our heart, our purpose, our allegiance and our love is for God first. Everything we do, say and produce should be to the glory of God.

We don’t take the attitude that says, “Now that I’m a Christian, God will help me to be all I can be.” It’s not about “me” anymore. It’s about God. It’s about me being part of God’s family and doing HIS will. Our attitude should be, “Live in me today, Lord, and work through me so that I can do YOUR will and so that I can be all that YOU have called me to be.”

And whatever God has called us to do, we do gladly. You may have always wanted to be a lawyer, but God has called you to be the janitor at an elementary school instead. What a shock! It’s not what you had planned for your career at all. There is no glory in it and the pay isn’t anything to shout out about. But that’s okay because your reward is in Heaven. And when God has given any of us a job to do, we are to do it with a whole heart, to HIS glory and for HIS purpose.

So, does God manipulate our lives when we become a Christian? Well, the truth is that it’s either God or Satan. The devil manipulates every life on this earth that doesn’t know God from the second it’s born. He works hard to keep each one of us from God and so he either makes this world so inviting that we think we have it all and life is good and we don’t need God quite yet, or he makes it so miserable that we blame God and hate Him for it. Either way, he manipulates our thoughts and our actions to serve him in this world.

But when we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind as it says in Luke 10:27, then we do all we do to His glory with a joyful heart. And we can still enjoy the blessings that God gives us in this life because God loves to bless His children. But our focus and our purpose is to do HIS will, not our own!

God loves each of us so much that Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins, but the god of this world doesn’t want to let go. However, when we study the Bible, we become strong in our faith in God and we can walk away from this world to surrender to God. But without getting His word deep into our heart, the influence of this world temps us and it becomes difficult to give up what we have made of our lives. We want the best of both worlds and don’t realize that we can only serve one master.

• For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.—Matthew 16:25

In Matthew 19:16-22, we learn of young man who came to Jesus to ask what he needed to do to get into Heaven. Jesus told him that he needed to obey the Ten Commandments and the man said that he did that. Then he asked if there was anything more that he needed to do. And when Jesus told him that he needed to give up the things of this world to follow Him, the man walked away sorrowfully because he couldn’t give them up. He was not willing to give up what he had made of his life to follow Jesus.

God has a purpose in His kingdom for each of us. Some people are given great responsibilities and others seem to have very little. But it’s not the amount of talents that we’re given that counts; it’s what we do with them to bless God that matters. Our lives belong to God. He created us, loved us, lost us through treason and then saved us from its death at the cross. Our status and our things in this world should never get in the way of knowing and loving our Heavenly Father. When we choose God over the glory of this world, then we’ll know who we are. Then we’ll know that we are His child.

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Thank you, and have a blessed day!