Why Bother?

As a follower of Jesus, you have probably run into a person who wants to know why you even bother to live a Christian life. To their credit, this is a legit question. Why do we bother to go to church, read our Bibles, spend time in prayer, give to the poor, help with Vacation Bible School, and the myriad of other things that we Christians do?

We can go another direction with this question: why don’t we do what everyone else does? Why don’t we steal, lie, and cheat? Isn’t that how one gets ahead in this life? Why don’t we get drunk every weekend to drown our sorrows and try to forget the world around us? The ultimate question is why should we behave the way we do?

Titus 2:11-14 gives us the answer to the question of why bother. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, 12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, 14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” There was a day when we were convicted of our sin, bowed our heads to the authority of Jesus Christ, and accepted His amazing grace and mercy; that is why we do what we do and do not do as the world does. The Holy Spirit through God’s word instructs us not to participate in the ungodliness of this world, and brother, there is a bunch of that going on. We are called to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the day in which we live. We surrender our lives to Christ because He surrendered His life for us.

We, as believers, choose to live this way because we look forward to the day when our Savior, our Lord and King, will return for us. What a glorious day; we live in such a way that when the Christ returns, He will see us being about the Father’s business. We choose to surrender our wants and desires because Jesus gave Himself for all of mankind. He bled and died a horrific death so that we would have the opportunity to be born again into a new life, a wonderful life that abounds in joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Every horrible and nasty sin we ever committed was paid for by the shed blood of the Lamb. Through Jesus, every lawless deed we have ever committed, or will ever commit, is forgiven, cast as far as the east is from the west. We now belong to God, and we no longer belong to the devil. This is why we bother. This is why we are zealous about doing what would please our God. This is why we are zealous to do what others are not willing to do. Because of what Jesus has done for us is why we bother.