When You Wonder If Your Life Is Really Making a Difference
- Bola Olu-Jordan (Pastor Bo)
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
One of the quiet struggles of faithful living is that much of what you do for God can feel unseen and insignificant.
Some people get a clear assignment. A platform. A visible cause. But what about the rest of us? You go to work, raise your kids, serve where you're needed, help when you can, and most days nothing about it feels significant. No stage. No recognition. No proof it counted for anything.
That is when the question starts to wear on the heart: Does my life matter to God?
Maybe you are there right now. Not idle, not backslidden, just quietly wondering if what you're doing at least matters to God.
And perhaps the hardest part is not knowing if it really does.
Peter writes directly into that kind of season. He does not just tell believers to work hard for God. He shows them what a life that counts actually looks like. Scripture never says that a life must be famous to be significant. So if you have ever wondered whether your ordinary life is enough, these six things are for you.
This is a call to be faithful before you are noticed.
1. Stay Watchful in Prayer
Life's pressure has a quiet way of crowding out your prayer life. Peter says:
"…Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." 1 Peter 4:7
To be sober is to remain clear-minded and spiritually alert. Life has many things that can distract, discourage, excite, or overwhelm us. Peter says: do not allow the times you are living in to destroy your prayer life.
The more serious the times become, the more serious the believer should become about prayer.
Jesus gave the same warning:
"Watch ye therefore, and pray always..." Luke 21:36
A life that counts for God is a life that stays connected to the source of life, God.
Remember: When others are distracted, stay watchful. When others are anxious, pray.
2. Love One Another Deeply
People will let you down. That's not a maybe. It's a given. But Peter gives us a command that becomes especially difficult when people hurt us:
"And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8
Notice the words "above all things."
Fervent love is not casual love. The word carries the idea of something stretched out, earnest, and persistent.
People will disappoint you. People will misunderstand you. People will sometimes offend you. If Christian relationships are going to survive, our love must be stronger than our irritation with one another.
Peter does not say love approves sin. He says love refuses to allow every offense to become a reason for division.
"Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins." Proverbs 10:12
Some things do not need another argument. They need love.
When Paul says in Romans 12:14, “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not,” he didn’t say to do it when it is convenient; he means to make it a lifestyle. Refusing to curse the person who hurts you does something in you as well. It keeps another person's wrongdoing from dictating the condition of your own heart. Peter clarifies it: “For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.” 1 Peter 3:10.
Remember: Don't allow another person's weakness to destroy your strength. Even if the world hates, your assignment is clear: “have fervent charity.” Love covers not one or a few sins, but a multitude of sins.
3. Be Hospitable Without Complaining
Love is easy to profess until it begins to cost us something. Peter now brings love out of sentiment and into everyday practice.
"Use hospitality one to another without grudging." 1 Peter 4:9
Hospitality costs something: time, convenience, food, money, privacy, or energy. That is why Peter adds two important words: "without grudging."
It is possible to do something good while resenting the person you are doing it for.
God is concerned not only with what we give, but with the spirit in which we give it.
"God loveth a cheerful giver." 2 Corinthians 9:7
Hospitality is bigger than entertaining guests. It is making room in your life for other people.
Remember: Don't merely open your door. Open your heart.
4. Use the Gift God Has Given You
Maybe you've looked at what you have to offer and thought it wasn't much. But realize that every believer has received something from God that can bless somebody else.
"As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another..." 1 Peter 4:10
Peter does not say, if you have received a gift.
He says: "As every man hath received..."
Your gift may not look like somebody else's. It may be teaching, encouraging, giving, serving, helping, leading, showing mercy, organizing, praying, creating, or strengthening others.
The question is not whether your gift looks impressive.
The question is: Are you using it?
Peter calls us:
"Good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
A steward does not own what has been entrusted to him. He manages it faithfully for the owner.
Your gift is God's grace entrusted to you for somebody else's benefit.
"Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy... Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering..." Romans 12:6–7
Remember: What God placed in you was never intended to stop with you.
5. Speak and Serve With What God Supplies
There comes a point in serving when the assignment exceeds what you feel you have left to give. Peter now turns to two broad expressions of ministry, speaking and serving, and shows us what to do when our own strength is no longer enough.
"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth..." 1 Peter 4:11
If you speak for God, take your words seriously.
Do not speak merely because you have something to say. Speak faithfully because God's Word deserves faithful handling.
And if you serve, do not imagine that everything depends upon your own strength.
Serve:
"As of the ability which God giveth."
God does not merely give the assignment. He supplies the strength for the assignment.
Paul understood this:
"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God." 2 Corinthians 3:5
You can become exhausted trying to accomplish God's work entirely in your own strength.
Remember: Speak from His Word. Serve from His strength.
6. Let Everything Bring Glory to God
At the end of it all, one question outlasts every other: who gets the credit? Peter brings everything to one destination:
"That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ..." 1 Peter 4:11
This is the purpose behind all five instructions.
Why do we pray, love, welcome others, use our gifts, speak, and serve? For one reason: that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.
The ultimate question is not whether you were successful, admired, or useful. It's whether your life made God visible.
Jesus said:
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16
Peter closes with:
"To whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
That is where a life that counts ultimately leads: not to people applauding us, but to God receiving glory.
So perhaps the question is not whether your life looks significant, but whether you are being faithful with what God has placed in your hands. A life does not have to be famous to matter. If you are praying, loving, serving, using your gift, and depending on God's strength, your life is already bearing the marks of something that counts.
You may never see the full impact of every prayer, every act of kindness, every word of encouragement, or every quiet act of obedience. But faithfulness is never wasted. What may seem ordinary to you may be one of the very places where God is making Himself visible through your life.
A Prayer
Lord, take what You have given me and use it for Your glory. Make me watchful in prayer, fervent in love, generous toward others, faithful with my gifts, dependent upon Your strength, and determined that in all things You alone will be glorified through Jesus Christ. Amen.
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