Three things about normal we need to know:
- Normal is the enemy of better.
Most of the time we are blind to OUR Normal. Normal is invisible.
- Normal is easy.
- Normal isn’t working.
Until we arrive at the conclusion that normal isn’t working, we are destined to keep repeating the same results over and over.
You can’t have the better life you want to live if you keep living the normal life you have been living.
Jesus isn’t normal – He’s better.
If I learn to live like Jesus, my life won’t be normal, but it will be better.
Jesus wants us to live LIKE Him.
But Jesus went a step further in what He asked of us. He did not just ask us to live LIKE Him. He said that there is something even better than that.
Jesus wants us to live FOR Him.
Luke 14:26 NLT
(26) “If you want to be My disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison–your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be My disciple.
If the love you have for your family does not look like hate compared to the love you have for Me, then leave.
Each of us are already living for something.
What you are living for determines whether you are happy or not, whether our lives are significant. We all have drawn that line that causes us to live for that thing. We determine our satisfaction and fulfillment in life based on what we live for.
If that is what you are living for, then what you are living for isn’t worth living for.
These kinds of statements are what caused the religious leaders of Jesus’ day to hate Him.
John 4:7-19 NIV
(7) When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
(8) (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
(9) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
(10) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
(11) “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
(12) Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
(13) Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
(14) but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
(15) The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
(16) He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
(17) “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.
(18) The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
(19) “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.
John 4:25-26 NIV
(25) The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
(26) Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you–I am he.”
Jesus is talking about when we begin to live life satisfied from the inside out instead of outside in.
The woman came to the well alone because she was tired of being judged by the others because of her past and what she has always lived for and what she lived for was not doing anything for her.
How can I know that if I make the decision to live FOR Jesus and give up what is important for me that I will receive everything that I need to be satisfied in this life?
Anything Jesus asks you to do, He has already done for you.
John 19:28 NIV
(28) Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
You can be sure that when Jesus asks us to live for Him, it is because He has lived and died for you and been unfulfilled and unsatisfied so that you can be fulfilled and satisfied.
Jesus took your thirst for whatever so that you can live a fulfilled life.
How do I evaluate whether I am living FOR Jesus or not?
- Time (Does Jesus get the best of your time or the rest of your time?)
- Money (Where your money is, there your heart is.)
- Thoughts (The more you living for someone, the more you think about them)
The more you live FOR Jesus, the living LIKE Jesus takes care of itself.