Worship With Everything You Have

Romans 12:1 says, to offer our bodies are a living sacrifice. Every believer has something to offer God as a sacrifice of worship. This sacrifice isn’t something morbid—rather it’s something alive and joyful; it’s an offering given out of gratefulness for His gift to us—salvation and eternal life. We no longer offer bulls and goats for sin as was custom in the Old Testament before Jesus came to live among us. He sacrificed His life for us. Our sacrifice is our heart, given freely to the One who redeemed it from the fate of spiritual death.

So, how to do we worship in this way? How does our life become a living sacrifice?

One way is to realize our life is full of choices. Every day we choose paths to follow, deeds to do, and actions to take. We will choose life or death, right or wrong—we will choose friends, make decisions, and follow paths that will either bring peace or turmoil. Choosing what honors God is what’s best, but without His help we struggle to do what is right. And, without a changed heart and transformed mind we can’t begin to know what to do.

Another way is to worship with who we are. We can take the talents, interests and gifts we have been given and either hide them, waste them or ignore them—or we can use them to touch the lives of others. If we hide them they will wither. But, if we exercise them and offer them, they will grow and flourish.

God takes us as we are, gives us a new heart and a new mind to comprehend the depth of His love, and then begins to nurture us in the right way to go.

So what does this living sacrifice idea mean to you? What do you have to offer Him?

Giving it all to Him,

Jeanne

Macro View

 “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me…” ~ Psalm 139:23-24 (NAS)

I love taking photographs! I particularly like getting close up shots using a macro setting on the camera. I love capturing the details of blossoms, bees and tiny views that are often missed when taking shots from afar. There’s something about taking the time to zoom in and notice things I would ordinarily overlook.

Psalm 139:23-24 is like God’s macro lens. And, as much as I don’t want to be under anyone’s microscope, I know I need Him to point out the details that I often gloss over: anxious thoughts, unconfessed sins and anything that will hurt me and keep me from a right relationship with Him and others.

I came into focus under His macro lens today. A visiting missionary shared a request of how we can pray for the work his team is doing:

Pray that people will understand the difference between worshipping God and feeling they need to serve in order to please Him.

There is a subtle difference and I find I am guilty. My service and work for Him doesn’t replace my need for worshipping Him alone. Busyness and a desire to please hinders my relationship with Him, and the result is a loss of joy.

His word says, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation”; a time when He was all I needed. A time when I realized my desperate need of His mercy and grace and realized that He loves me in spite of who I am. That hasn’t changed; He loves me just as I am and I am still desperate for Him and Him alone.

So as I see myself a little more clearly, I ask for His forgiveness for making my work and service an idol. I cannot write, speak, teach or do anything without His help. John 15 says I need to abide in Him, staying close to the vine because He is the source of all things—and everything I need.

My life is but a breath in eternity. I want it to be spent in daily worship of the One who loves me despite what I do. Out of this will come a life lived to the fullest, for His glory and His alone.