“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Does God care whether I read, watch Netflix, garden, take walks, listen to music, or play golf? In other words, does God care how I spend my time?
Another way of thinking about it is, is there a physical or secular part of life that is separate from our spiritual life?
C.S. Lewis in his book Beyond Personality (later merged with The Case for Christianity and Christian Behaviour to form the classic Mere Christianity), differentiates biological life, which he refers to as Bios, and spiritual life, which he calls Zoe. He defines Zoe as “The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe.” In Beyond Personality, he uses the metaphor of humans possessing only Bios, as statues:
“A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man. And that is just precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”
Physical and Spiritual Are Not Separate
Luke and the Apostle Paul both discuss the physical activities of life, such as eating and drinking. Luke refers to them as things “the pagan world runs after” (Luke 12:29-30) and Paul says “do it all for the glory of God.” Both men understand that our Bios, or physical life, cannot continue without food and drink, and yet once we’ve gained Spiritual life, or Zoe, through faith in Christ, all these physical things become spiritual, or for God’s glory.
Back to Lewis: “The whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist … Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply that: nothing else.”
For Christians, followers of Christ, possessors of Spiritual life, there is no separate physical life. All of life becomes about God. “For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (Romans 11:36).
Living for God, Not Ourselves
The even harder reality to grasp is that once we are found “in Christ” through faith in Him, we are to “put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to [our] earthly nature,” (Colossians 3:5) or physical life. We don’t “put to death” the physical or biological activities such as eating, drinking, working, getting dressed, shopping, learning, exercising, socializing, enjoying nature, etc., but we must put to death the old reasons for living and enjoying physical life: anything involved with pleasing only ourselves and our flesh. (Paul, the author of Colossians, lists those things as: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed”.)
What is the point? The point is that if your faith is in Christ, if you have traded in your old “earthly nature” or physical life for His Spiritual life, then yes, everything changes. That includes how you spend your free time. You may continue engaging in many of the activities you engaged in before you knew Christ, but the purpose for which you do them must change. Quite simply, it needs to become about Him instead of about you.
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We now live, first and foremost, for the glory of God. We also live to “infect” others with this Spiritual life that we have found. “Men are mirrors, or ‘carriers’ of Christ to other men,” Lewis wrote. Lewis called this “good infection.”
“And now we begin to see what it is that the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians ‘being born again’; it talks about them ‘putting on Christ’; about Christ ‘being formed in us’; about our coming to ‘have the mind of Christ’. It’s about Jesus coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God: which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity” (Lewis).
Do It All for His Glory
You might be thinking right now, if that is what Christianity really is, I don’t want it. All I wanted was my own life with some Jesus added in. But that is impossible. Jesus is not an add on, like a fish bumper sticker or a cross one might wear on a chain. He’s a change agent. He’s God! And He wants not part of us, but all of us, including our “free” time. He wants us to be like Him and our life to be about Him.
It must be true if His Word says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). So the answer is simple: if you can’t do it for His glory, don’t do it. If others watching you would not be drawn to Christ by your example, don’t do it.
The Apostle Paul got it when he said, “For me, to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21).
So, can you read for the glory of God? Can you watch Netflix and do it in a way that pleases Him and reflects His style of life? No one can truly answer the question for you, but I promise you this: ask God to begin transforming your Bios into His Zoe and He will! And no, life will not get worse, it will become better than you ever dreamed possible! You will taste heaven on earth. You will get to know God. You will trade in the meaningless and the empty for fruit that lasts for all eternity!
Again, no one puts it quite like Lewis: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
God absolutely cares about our lives. He wants to transform them completely and use them! What a glorious thought!
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Kristi Walker has been a missionary in Berlin, Germany for over 19 years working with CrossWay International Baptist Church. She is the author of three books: Disappointment: A Subtle Path Away from Christ, Convinced: Applying Biblical Principles to Life’s Choices, and Big Picture: 66 Books, 1 Message.