It's prep time!

There are 17 days left in 2017 and my assignment today is to make sure you use the time wisely. As I was praying this morning, the Lord put Romans 12:1-2 in my spirit. I heard it as clearly, in the New King James Version, as if an old deacon was reading it on a Sunday morning. “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. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” However, in order to make sure you really feel it, I am going to share it again in the Message version. (I know, I know…not surprising!)

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Rom. 12:1-2 MSG)

 The Lord began to talk to me about leaving the old behind and walking into the new with clean hands and a pure heart. He began to talk to me about the great exchange and the reality of a living sacrifice. The churchiness in many of us will skip over the importance of Paul’s choice of words when he said “living sacrifice”. You see when God sent Jesus to redeem us; He gave His life for our freedom. He took the purity and holiness of Christ and put it against the dirt and shame of sin and the result was eternal life, victory and restoration.  When Paul talks about placing our whole life before God as an offering, he is reminding us of that exchange. He is reminding us that while offering and sacrifices in the Old Testament meant death, Jesus’s sacrifice means life. That is why it is so important to take the instruction of these verses and walk into 2018 with a new level of thinking. Your perspective must change. Your willingness to compromise your obedience to make others comfortable must change.  Your decisions to prioritize your schedule over God’s plans must change. The Lord is calling us from a self-centered comfort to a God-inspired obedience.

2017 has called for many of you to transition and shift. It has called for you to exchange some relationships and places for new ones. It has called for you to leave some old attitudes and behaviors behind and replace them with new ones. It has been challenging and uncomfortable, as it is not an easy process to leave the familiar for the unknown. Believe me, I understand! However today, I want to let you know that the harvest of spiritual maturity will be worth it. The stretching and the uncertainty will pay dividends.

People of God, use these remaining days of this year to deal with your disobedience, rebellion and struggle. Identify what is keeping you from presenting your whole life to God as a living (continual, breathing, moving) sacrifice and fix it. Leave the world’s approval behind and embrace the Lord’s opinion. Give God your best in preparation for your new in 2018!

Amen