“So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV
I have seen this verse posted different places to remind us that no matter what we are doing we are to do our best to glorify God while we are doing it. That is a tall order but it is what we, as Christians are to strive to do…..everything for God. A new Christian may find this verse overwhelming, which I can understand. So let’s look at the context a little.
Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he is addressing the idolatry that was rampant in Corinth. Food and drink were used a lot in Paul’s time as examples of how to bring glory or not to God which is how it is being used here. As he wrote to the Christians in Corinth, he was trying to help them understand that even the smallest of things that they did could be done either for God or not. The non-Christians in Corinth were idol worshippers but were still family members of the new Christians, which meant that they were still in the Christians’ lives and ate meals with them.
Being a Christian back then, as it is now, was hard. It was a new way of thinking and living that was not steeped in years of tradition. The leader of this way of thinking and living had been crucified on a cross, one of the most violent ways to be killed in that day, as well as a way that was reserved for the worst criminals. So everything that a Christian did was looked at closely by others to see if the Christian was truly following this new way of living. If Christians chose to follow the rules of their new way of thinking and living only on some days and not others, than they were no less a hypocrite than anyone else who chose when they were willing to worship whatever idol they were choosing to worship.
Paul is trying to help the new Christians of Corinth to understand that God created us, that He is the One True God. That as His creation, He gave them free will which allows them, His creations, to choose to honor Him or to ignore Him in everything they did each day. Paul informs the Christians of his day that honoring God was not reserved for only certain days or certain actions. They were able to honor God every day and with ALL of their actions.
Paul’s teaching is relevant today as well. We are able to honor God in everything we do each and every day. Things as ordinary as eating and drinking, can be used to honor God or dishonor Him. Most importantly, our intentions in regards to our thoughts and our actions are what we should be paying attention to each day. Are we working at our job to simply pay our bills, or have we considered that maybe God has placed us in our current job to show someone the Light of Jesus through us? Do we complete our tasks around the house so that the house looks nice or could our intention be to purposefully take care of what God has blessed us with in this life?
God is alive, not like the idols made of pieces of wood, bronze, gold, silver. He can speak and interact with His creation, much like a parent is able to interact with their child. In the same way that a child can honor or dishonor their parent, we can honor or dishonor God. As His creation, His children, we can show Him how we feel about being His child.
God has given each one of us everything we need to live life on this earth, from our ability to do the tasks we need to do to make a living, to the desire to love the people in our lives. We can choose to live our lives being thankful or not. We can choose to bring honor to our Creator or not and no action is too small to be used to bring that honor.
What do you choose to do today? Bring honor to God with all of your being, in everything you do or not? The choice is yours.