Surrender

Recently God has really been laying on my heart the true sacrifice of life. In Romans Paul tells us how our lives should look. Romans 12:1 says "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." Basically what Paul is trying to say is broken into two parts.


     The first thing he says is, hey guys, look at what God has done for you! He sent His son to die on the cross for your sins and He set you free from captivity. Once Paul finishes with that he moves on to what we should do in light of that. He tells us that we ought to offer our lives as living sacrifices to God. What is interesting about the wording here is the fact that a living sacrifice, doesn't really make sense. In the Old Testament the priests would offer sacrifices to temporarily cover the sins of the people. So these sacrifices were stone dead. But Paul tells us to be a living sacrifice.


     What he means is that in ourselves we are dead. We should realize that we would still be sinners without Christ, but through Him we have life. I don't know about you but that makes me want to live for Christ in a big way. I know that we can never repay Him for what He has given us, but I still want to thank Him by giving my life to Him in any way that He wants to use it. That is what Paul is trying to convey to us. He wants us to see what God has done and let us realize that all we can do is offer our lives to Him.


    I want to challenge you to really think about the verses here in Romans. Read around it. Read the whole book! Just think about it though. Is God calling you to give your life to Him as a sacrifice? I can't promise that it will be easy. It takes faith and trust and it is gonna be risky at times, but in the end, I can tell you that the reward will outweigh the hardship. God is good.

Worship... or worship?

Something that I have really been thinking about for the past couple of days was brought up to me by someone. They said that when we worship in our Sunday morning services or even at chapel on Fridays that we so easily get distracted. It is hard for the worship leader to pick right songs and do the best they can when they don't truly understand what their goal is. Obviously everyone says to worship God and to lead other people in worship. But, as this person pointed out to me and how I have noticed, these services have become more and more distracting and less and less God centered. 


We get caught up in the music and making it sound good. Am I saying we should do a terrible job when we go up on stage as a leader. No way, but it is absolutely vital to not be a distraction. This person told me that our goal should be to be as transparent as possible. It is not our job to make the worship interesting or to gratify our own personal desires. Worship is solely for God's pleasure. I do not have a right answer of how to solve this problem. I've been thinking about it for awhile now and still haven't come up with a solution, but I challenge you to give this thought. How much of our worship is to seek spiritual gratification for ourselves and how much of it is simply telling God how awesome he his. Are the songs we singing truly bulging with truths from the Word of God, or are they simply fluff and cherry's that sound nice?

Our desires or God's?

I know I haven't gotten to get a real post up, but I did want to leave you guys with some thoughts. Recently I have had a feeling of peace. Let me explain. When something comes up that just makes life more busy and stressful and adds to the mix it doesn't bother me. When I used to feel like life was overwhelming and it was getting to me, it doesn't bother me any more. The reason why is because I have learned that God's timing is perfect and all things happen for the good of those who love Him. So I guess I would have to say that my outlook on life has changed. It has gone from a focus of me to a focus on God. I'm not trying to make myself sound great because in taking my focus off of me it includes realizing that I deserve eternal death. I know that without God there is no good in me. So in knowing what we deserve we can be thankful in all circumstances because no matter what we are being blessed by God. Every breath is a gift of God. I challenge you to take a step back from the hustle and bustle of life and really think about what you have and how much of a gift it is!

Romans 1:16

If you are reading this, that means you have made it to my first blog post. So welcome! What I want to do with my blog is just give ideas on passages of Scripture, thoughts about problems of life, and ultimately bring glory to God.


I decided on the theme of Not Ashamed because, recently God has been placing on my heart to really make a conscious decision to live a life that is all out and sold out for Him. I felt that Romans 1:16 does a good job of putting that into perspective. It says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." This verse really captures the thought process that I'm having. It takes us from our own strength and gives it to whom it really belongs. God. The reason we don't need to be ashamed of the gospel, or the good news of Christ is because it is not from us, but it is the power of God. This requires a look at who God is. The Almighty, All Powerful, Star-Breather, Creator and Sustainer of the universe. That is who this verse is talking about. We don't need to be ashamed because we are not the ones that have to reach the heart of man, but the power of God. It is simply our job to spread the news to everyone we come in contact with. This is where the life that is all out and sold out comes into play. I believe that we should be living lives where every second is used to bring honor and glory to God. Will we ever reach that point? No probably not, but I know that I want to do everything I can to give Christ my all.