What Are You Doing With the Life God Gave You?

Everything you touch, build, accumulate, or admire in this world is passing away. One day, you will leave every bit of it behind. The house, the money, the title, the reputation, the plans, all of it. We can spend decades building things we believe will give our lives meaning, security, significance, and success, yet Scripture reminds us that none of these things will last forever. That is not a message designed to discourage us from working, building, creating, leading, or pursuing excellence. It is a reminder that we had better understand what all of it is ultimately for.

John tells us plainly, "The world is passing away, along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God remains forever." That is a sobering statement, especially in a culture that has become obsessed with what can be seen, measured, acquired, displayed, and admired. We are constantly being told to build a better life, accumulate more, become more successful, protect our future, establish our name, increase our influence, and leave something behind. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. The question is whether those things have become the purpose of our lives.

There is a difference between using what God has given us and allowing what God has given us to become our god.

That distinction matters because we can become so consumed with building something in this world that we forget we are only passing through it. We can spend years building a business, a career, a ministry, a reputation, a financial position, a following, or a comfortable life and never stop to ask the question that matters most: What am I doing with the life God gave me?

That is not a question only for the wealthy, the successful, or the powerful. It is a question for every Christian.

What are you doing with your time? What are you doing with your abilities? What are you doing with the relationships God has placed in your life? What are you doing with the opportunities He has given you? What are you doing with the knowledge you have been entrusted with? What are you doing with the influence you have, whether it reaches ten people or ten thousand? And perhaps most importantly, what are you doing with the truth God has allowed you to know?

We are commanded to live differently because we belong to Christ. We are not saved so that we can spend the rest of our lives pursuing the same things the world pursues, with Christian language added to them. We are called to seek first the Kingdom of God. We are called to love God, love our neighbour, make disciples, serve others, walk in obedience, pursue righteousness, and use what God has placed in our hands for His purposes.

That does not mean you should stop building your business. It does not mean you should stop pursuing excellence. It does not mean Christians should be poor, passive, or disengaged from the world. Scripture gives us examples of people who worked, built, governed, traded, created, led, and managed resources. The issue is not whether we build. The issue is what we are building for.

You can build something impressive and still waste your life.

You can have money and still be poor in the things that matter to God. You can have influence and still have no eternal impact. You can build a respected name and still spend your life pursuing your own glory. You can achieve everything you once dreamed of and eventually discover that none of it answered the deeper question of why God gave you the life you have.

Jesus asked, "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" That question has not become less relevant because we live in a modern world. If anything, it has become more important.

We have more ways than ever to measure success, but very few ways to measure faithfulness. We can count followers, revenue, possessions, accomplishments, connections, titles, awards, and achievements, but none of those numbers can tell us whether we have actually lived the life God intended us to live.

And this is where Christians need to be willing to examine themselves honestly.

Are we using God to get the life we want, or are we surrendering the life we have to God? Are we asking Him to bless our plans, or are we willing to change our plans when they conflict with His Word? Are we pursuing success because we believe it is part of our calling, or because we want the recognition that comes with it? Are we building because God has given us something to build, or because we want to prove something to the people around us?

Those questions are not comfortable, but Christianity was never intended to be a comfortable examination of someone else's life. Scripture tells us to examine ourselves.

The world is passing away, along with its desires. That includes the things we spend so much of our time worrying about. The title will eventually be gone. The money will eventually belong to someone else. The house will eventually belong to another family. The business will eventually have another owner. The reputation we spent years building will eventually be forgotten by people who never knew us. Even our own lives will end.

That is not pessimism. It is reality.

And once we understand that, it changes the way we should live.

We should still build, but we should build with eternity in view. We should still work, but we should understand that our work is ultimately an opportunity to serve God and others. We should still pursue excellence, but excellence should never become an excuse for making ourselves the centre of everything. We should still steward money and resources, but we should remember that everything we have ultimately belongs to God.

The question is not whether you have built something. The question is whether what you have built has become more important to you than the One who gave you the ability to build it.

One day, every one of us will stand before God. The things that seem so important today will suddenly be seen from an entirely different perspective. We will not be standing there with our title, our bank account, our LinkedIn profile, our business cards, our house, our accomplishments, or the approval of the people who once admired us. We will stand before God as the person He created us to be and answer for the life we were given.

That should cause every one of us to stop and take inventory.

Not tomorrow. Not when the business is where we want it. Not when we have made enough money. Not when we have achieved the position we have been pursuing. Now.

What are you doing with the life God gave you?

Because everything else is passing away.

And I encourage everyone reading this to take a hard look at what you are doing with it. Ask yourself whether the life you are building is simply impressive in the eyes of the world, or whether it is actually faithful in the eyes of God.

The world is passing away. Its desires are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever.

That is what deserves our attention.