Worship Wednesday

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God —this is your true and proper worship.  Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of  your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. ~Romans 12:1-2

"God's Will is Worship"

I like God's promises, don't you? This passage holds one of God’s conditional promises. Verse 1 sets the stage.  It says, in light of God’s mercy everything we do, say and achieve in our lives should be to God’s glory. And to offer our bodies as a sacrifice is true worship and it is delightful in His eyes. Now, I like the little tiny phrase in verse one "In the view of God's mercy". That’s means we need to put on our mercy glasses to see clearly that our lives should bring glory to God; because He has had mercy on us. Without His mercy we would be lost and still deserving of His wrath and offering our bodies (lives) as sacrifices is a small price to pay.

In the Old Testament God’s people sacrificed animals to show repentance and to worship god. When God’s people sacrificed an animal that was considered an act of worship to God, it was a sweet aroma to Him because their sins were covered and their hearts and attitudes were pleasing to God. But now that Christ became the perfect sacrifice the need for animal sacrifice is no longer needed. However, because He is still God and still blessing us with His grace and mercy, we still should have the attitude of sacrifice by being a "living" sacrifice unto God. Yes, Jesus did the work but we still need to have the right mind set, attitude every day because of that sacrifice and not take it for granted.

That’s why the sacrificial  fasting period that we have set aside in The Sanctuary is a defining moment in our lives. As I am sure there have been days that self-control has been such a struggle and we have wanted to throw in the towel and say forget this, who cares. God cares! We are “presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice" and we have dug in deep and have taken authority over the flesh and focused on the bigger picture and that’s feeding our natural bodies more whole and nutritious  foods, and we are feeding our spiritual souls with more prayer, more worship and fellowship. And this is what God wants; He wants us to focus on bringing our spiritual and physical health under control and submission. He wants all of us; our whole man. When we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, we are able to offer ourselves as true and proper worship. When we offer our lives and our will to Him it is a “sweet aroma” of worship to our beloved Creator.  

And the second verse gives us clear direction as to what not to do and the result of this conditional promise. It says clearly; do not conform to this world. We need to be transformed. How do we become transformed? The answer is very simple here in verse two, by the renewing of our minds. I like the word renewing it has action behind it. We don't renew our minds once. We need to be in a state of renewing. We should seek God daily as we have done the past 14 days. We daily need to seek God, read His word, fellowship, meditate on His teachings, and most importantly spending time in prayer, listening, hearing and being obedient to his divine revelation for His will for our lives.  When  we allow our minds to be transformed by God then we understand the heartbeat of  God. We have developed a relationship with Him. He has become more than a  friend to us. When you understand someone that well then you know their character, you understand their motives, and you know the love they have for you. So when things get tough and you do not understand how to deal with the tough circumstances or the trials, then you can go to your Creator to get clarification about His will because you know Him. You may not know the full extent of what He is doing but you can totally trust Him!  

Therefore, when you know Him and trust Him, you know His will is good, pleasing and  perfectly perfect in every way. So on this Worship Wednesday let’s offer true sacrificial worship to get to know and come into agreement with His Will for our  lives as His Will is what’s best for you.