Do you ever wonder what God's dream is for you? Are you ever afraid that you are going to miss it? Maybe it is just me because I no longer question my salvation, my fear is that I am going to miss it. Miss God's path for me. And it will be my fault.
I am afraid that I am going to spend my life on what is comfortable, easy, safe. I want to learn to abandon my life to a Greater Power and a Greater Purpose. I don't want to choose my own course. There are so many blessings if we allow God total control over our lives. God is showing me lately that I only give him part of me as a sacrifice.
Look at Romans 12:1, Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship..
When we ask God what do you want? And he says, "I want your body." You see when he gets the body, he gets the contents. Paul gives us so much direction how to give it to him. "Present your body to him as a living sacrifice."
Why a living sacrifice? Paul was basically contrasting it with the old Testament sacrifices, which animals were first killed, cut into pieces and placed on the altar. Paul was saying, "Don't kill your body and place it on the altar. Place a living body on the altar."
When a sacrifice was placed on the altar it no longer belonged to the person who offered it, it belonged to God. God is saying, "Place your body on My altar as a living sacrifice. From now on you don't own it. I own it. You don't make decisions as to what will happen to your body- I make them. I take full responsibility for it. I decide what you will eat, wear, and where you go.
There are major benefits to this kind of commitment. God has a different attitude toward the property that is merely leased to Him as opposed to the property that is His. He accepts full responsibility for what he owns.
God has made it clear that offering our bodies as living sacrifices is OBEDIENCE that comes from our heart. Daily laying aside our own desires to follow him. Putting all our energy, resources at His disposal and TRUSTING him.
Surrendering your life to God is the most wonderful and hardest thing you will ever have to do.
To cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it. (Matthew 10:39).
Looking at the world through a TEMPORAL value system will cause us to pursue happiness through: earthly treasures: money, power, popularity.
Driven only to accomplish to impress!
Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that is “finding his place in it,” while really it is finding its place in him.
C.S. Lewis
What we love is what we will give our hearts too...........and what we give our hearts to is what we pass down to our children.
"Our priorities will shape our practices!"
What have our desires made us?
AW Tozer
At the end of my life when I stand at the throne of God, I long to hear those powerful words "Well Done My Good and Faithful Servant."
all of grace,
Robbie
