Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?

This post is part of a Missional Synchroblog. The first question is, “What is missional living look like to me?”

2 Corinthians 5: 14-15

For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

This verse is the chorus in the theme-song of my life, it echoes in my head and my heart when I am at my worst.

Christ's love compels us… one died for all… those who live should no longer live for themselves… but for him who died…


When life is just too much, when I am angry, overworked, under appreciated or ill-treated. When I allow my selfish nature to surface and start thinking only about me, how things effect me, why me, why not me.

Christ's love compels us… one died for all… those who live should no longer live for themselves… but for him who died…

The words of this verse are always with me, they creep up on me, whisper to me, sing to me, call to me.

Christ's love compels us… one died for all… those who live should no longer live for themselves… but for him who died…

Sometimes it takes the form of the question: ‘Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?

Christ's love compels us… one died for all… those who live should no longer live for themselves… but for him who died…

I’ve heard the story of missionaries in ages past who traveled to their area of mission with their belongings packed in a coffin, aware that for most the life expectance was two years. When did those missionaries die? Have you died yet?

Christ's love compels us… one died for all… those who live should no longer live for themselves… but for him who died…


But what then should we live for?

2 Corinthians 5: 16-21

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I started this post by considering the question?

What does Missional Living look like to me?

But I find I have no answer to what it “looks like”

I can only say: What it “thinks like”, What it “feels like”.

This is the heart of Missional Living to me: Not my actions but my attitude.

I’ll give this example, I am by my nature a reserved introspective person. This last week I was standing in a long queue. I was quietly enjoying the thinking time, when this rather outlandish lady started taking to me. Non-Missional-Me would reply “Hmmm” avoid all eye contact and hope that she left me alone so I could go back to thinking. Missional-Me answers positively with a smile, shows an interest in what she has to say and spends the next 10 min engaged in a conversation I had no ‘natural’ interest in. This does not sound like much, but you have to understand what has had to change internally in me for this to take place. Small talk goes so far against my natural inclination this interaction is like a fish riding a bicycle.

This is one small example of my way of living missionally, there are many others. From the outside it does not look like much, but inside it feels missional, the thoughts are missional. Such simple acts, like a conversation, are missional because for me they mean no longer living for myself.

God having reconciled us to himself, having given us new life calls us to give up our life in the pursuit of bringing God’s reconciliation to others.

Christ's love compels us… God… reconciling the world to himself in Christ… one died for all… those who live should no longer live for themselves… but for him who died… he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Missional Living is not about what I do but about always asking myself:

‘Are the things I am living for worth Christ dying for?’

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Synchroblog Participants

Blake Huggins - What Does Missional Living Look Like

Alan Knox - Living in the love of God

Jonathan Brink - Meeting God Where He’s Already Working

Dave Devries - What Does “Missional Living” Look Like to Me?

Bryan Riley - What Does Missional Living Look Like To Me?

Jeromy Johnson - What is missional living to me

David Wierzbicki - We are missioning

Tim Jones - Living Like the Word Says

Nathan Gann - Inevitability?

Ben Wheatley - Are The Things You Are Living For Worth Christ Dying for?