How do you know if you are living for Jesus?

God taught me a lesson that I wanted to share with you. 

He said, "Ilona, are you living for yourself or are you living for Me?" 

The first thing that came to mind was, "Lord, what do you mean? I'm doing all of this for You. My business, my ministry, my relationship it's all for you Lord!" 

He said, "If you were to live for Me, things would look different." 

I found myself trying to validate my efforts in that moment and asked Him again, "What do you mean by that God?

He said, "If you were living for me, you would love as I love." 

"You would honor as I honor." 

"You would respect as I respect."

 "You would obey as I've obeyed." 

My heart became convicted at that moment, "Lord, I am so sorry, you're right. I haven't lived as you've commanded me to."

There were too many times in my life when I did things out of my own understanding, out of my own will, pride, and sometimes even out of my own frustrations.

And God was saying, "Ilona, when you lived this way, you didn't live for me. You lived with the false idea of doing it for me."

Dear viewer, I want to ask you, have you lived moments or maybe your entire life believing in Jesus, but perhaps you haven't spent much time knowing who Jesus is and what He wants? 

Maybe you do a lot for Him and you do it well. But when God reveals His holiness and conviction, you realize how much it's about you instead of Him. The ultimate purpose of our life is to bring Him praise and for the world to know our God. The question that convicted me was, when people look at me, do they see Jesus?  

I may talk about Jesus all day long. But do people know the love of the Father? The conviction of a Father? The repentant, forgiving love of a Father through everything I do? Or do I stand in the way of them knowing Jesus? This is something I had to apologize and repent for in my self-righteousness. In my prayer, I said, "God, I am so sorry for the way I've been living for myself. I'm thankful that your mercy was extended to me through your conviction and that you shed grace on me once again. Help me live for you."

Dear viewer, I want to encourage you. Let God lead you, let Him speak into you, and let Him convict you so you would understand that this life is about Him alone.  When you dishonor him, you live for you, and when you live for you, life feels pretty pointless.

This is something I want the spirit to work on me for the rest of my life. I don't want to be "holier than thou," I want to be so close to Jesus that when people look at me, they see Him in and through me. I pray the same for you.