by Pastor Patrick Cho

Dear friends and family of LBC,

I hope you are well and walking in the Lord. If I were to ask you how your week was going, what would be your response? I’m sure many of you would respond by saying that it has been like any other week; that you’re just going through the daily grind of classes or work. But why is it that we respond that way? Is it simply because nothing extraordinary has taken place? Certainly this week would be interesting if you were in a car accident or your house got broken into. But are these out of the ordinary events the only things that set one week apart from any other?

One way to make this week stand out would be to deliberately make opportunities to live for the Lord (yes, I said “make,” because if you simply wait for these things to “happen” you may end up waiting a long time). I really believe that one reason life carries on as usual is because we fail to see the many opportunities to glorify God in our everyday decisions. I like what Paul Tripp says, that how we live for the Lord is not seen in isolated, extraordinary events as much as it is in everyday, small decisions. Do you go to work simply to earn the paycheck and pay next month’s bills? Or do you seek to do your best in all things for the glory of God because God is your ultimate employer? Do you go to school simply to make the grade and climb up the ladder of success? Or is your motivation to be available to be used by God regardless of what direction He would take you or what He would have you do with your life?

When you seek to live each day this way, there is no such thing as an ordinary week. First of all, this is the kind of life that maximizes your potential to please the Lord and live for Him. When you are constantly thinking about how your life fits into His plan instead of how God fits into your plan, you will have the life that brings Him the most glory. Second, living this way opens opportunities to represent Christ each day. When you are aware of the reasons and motives of what you do, and those reasons and motives are governed by biblical principles, you will stand out in the workplace and classroom.

Finally, by living this way, you open the door to suffering. This isn’t to say we are just masochistic and seek out pain. But we need to realize that it comes with living for the Lord. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Certainly the persecution in Paul’s day may have been more intense, but the world we live in today is no different. We live in a society that is open and honest about its hatred of the things of God. This culture is marked by its toleration of sin. When we stand for the things of God, by necessity, we place ourselves against the flow of the current of our culture. We will be the unpopular ones because we go against the grain of contemporary thought. We will be seen as the exclusivists because we teach that Christ is the only way to be right with God. We will be branded as dated, hateful, ultra-conservative, and bigots, for instance, because we teach that homosexuality is a sin and not a lifestyle, and that we are governed by biblical principles instead of what society deems as right and just.

This is what it means to live for the Lord. Try to live this way this week and see if you can say at the end of the week that it was mundane and carried out as usual. May we all seek to live for the Lord better with each passing day instead of falling into the spiritual coma of complacency.

In His grace,

Pastor Patrick

P.S. Don’t forget to read through the announcements so that you know what’s going on at LBC!