“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” –Romans 12:1
You want to talk about a Spiritual challenge?! Living your life as a “living sacrifice” is so tough! The biggest reason is because “a living sacrifice can crawl off the altar,” as my pastor likes to say. It’s so true though. How many times do you say, “Ok, I’m going to sell out completely to God now and totally go a 100% in and obey him?” Then, flash forward about 3 or 4 hours and you’ve already made a decision completely based on your own wants and desires regardless how it affects your spiritual life. Yep, been there a million and a half times myself!
The verse above tells us it’s our reasonable service to God to present our bodies as a sacrifice to him. But “how,” you might ask? “How can I present my life as a living sacrifice daily?” It’s pretty simple in theory but so hard to follow through with the action of doing it. Guys, we MUST get over ourselves and expecting God to give us what WE want out of life! We have to get past ourselves, sell out, and go all in for him. We must stop expecting God to be our personal genie and stop thinking that God owes us something or that he’s just here to bless us. On the contrary, we are to be his servant letting him use our life for HIS glory, not ours. This involves every decision we make every day of our life. Just as a diamond seller looks through the lens to see the cut of the diamond so too we must live our lives examining our actions under God’s lens of surrender and obedience to him.
Men, do you want to do great things in this life for God? Do you want to be blessed more wildly than you can ever think or imagine? There is no greater joy than to be used by the God of the universe in service to him and others around us! Trust me! If we can just get past ourselves and what we want out of life and ask, “God, what do you want for my life?” This may mean crawling back up on the altar every hour of the day but make a concerted effort in your walk to do this moment by moment with every decision you make. I’ll tell you right now, if you do this you will become a greater man and more effective in your walk, your ministry, your business, your relationships, and the list goes on and on. God isn’t going to fail you gentleman no matter how many people have let you down before. You’re safe and can rely on him as you drop your pride and allow him to rule your life. Commit today to doing this and watch the stress and burdens of your life slowly fall off your shoulders. God’s got you in his hands and he’s not letting go anytime soon. Too many Christians “think” they’re living a sacrificial life but their actions don’t measure up. I struggle with this myself all the time. Let’s make an effort in God’s strength to life a sacrificial life in the decisions we make and our actions. It’s as simple as saying, “God, here I am, your servant, please use me.” And then walk the walk and make decisions based on that surrender to the Lord and his leading on your life. Always be comparing your actions to what God would want you to do in that current situation.
As many times as it takes, crawl back up on that altar out of surrender to YOUR God.
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