In His Service

“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 (NKJV)

This is the verse of Scripture I’m memorizing this week and a few things spoke to my heart as I’ve pondered it. 

As believers, we are made to serve God and in so doing, bring Him honor and glory.  Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God and His sacrifice was sufficient to pay our sin debt once for all.  There is nothing we can do to earn salvation, but once saved, we are to serve Him as living sacrifices.

We usually think of service in terms of action—what we can do to serve. Certainly that is an important aspect of service and the verse above mentions using our bodies.  But we also need to serve God by the right attitude of our hearts.  That comes when we acknowledge Jesus as Lord of our lives, submit to His authority and seek to do His will.  From that flows a humble, loving and compassionate heart to serve others.

This verse seems to exhort us to a lifelong commitment and dedication to our Lord, one that is renewed daily. We can't just rest on our past service or on plans to serve in the future.  We should focus on what we can do today to serve God with our hearts and bodies. Out of gratitude and love for our gracious Savior, let us be sacrificial in devoting ourselves to His service every day.

Thursday Devotional - Pure and Permanent Priest

We’re two months into 2020!!! How are you doing with your 2020 goals? There are a few I’ve done well and a couple I haven’t.

Jesus had a goal for His life on earth and he completed it perfectly. His goal was to provide eternal salvation to all who will receive it. He perfectly and permanently accomplished it! Because of that, the writer of Hebrews calls Jesus our pure and permanent High Priest. The Old Testament High Priests couldn’t save anyone.

Hebrews 7:23-27  ²³ Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; ²⁴ but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. ²⁵ Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

²⁶ Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. ²⁷ Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

As we begin the season of Lent, there are so many encouraging promises to focus on from this passage about Jesus as our pure and permanent priest.

1.   He already provided complete salvation (to those who accept it)

2.   He is the only way to God

3.   He is alive and interceding for believers daily

4.   He is and has the answer for every need

Which truth will you and I appreciate and focus on today?

Alice

Trapped

“You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one.
You do not want a burnt offering.
The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit— with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.
Then bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.”. Psalms‬ ‭51:16-19‬ ‭NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

My wife is really smart.  She understands that I am often not motivated by her pointing out how wrong I am about a certain thing.  She also understands that I love her more than anything, and the best way to get what she wants is not to push for her way.  Instead, she shares how it affects her.  She knows that a psychological wall always comes up when it focuses on her wants, but it comes down when she appears in need or despair.  Now some might view this as being manipulative, but they do not know her.  She would never take advantage of this liberty.  Why?  Because she loves me, and it’s her unconditional love for me that ultimately breaks me.  I thought about this when thinking about God’s will for my life.  By giving my life to Him, I agreed to serve Him.  In serving Him, it means that I at times will be broken out of His love for me.  Sometimes, it is simply breaking for what makes His heart break (see the Devotion ‘Heartbreaker’).  But other times, He just pushes me to where I am trapped with nowhere else to go, and there is nothing left but for me to go to Him.

Committing to God means that we have to accept that He will break us to build us up into the people that will follow Him.  While reading these verses, I realized David was in this place of utter submittal to God.  He recognized where he was wrong, but to admit guilt to God wasn’t enough.  He understood God wanted more than just repentance. He wanted all of David that not only included a repentant heart but also a broken one.  Our heart fights hard to do things its own way only to become trapped in a corner by what God wants with one of two choices.  The first is to fight with all its might to keep its ways, sinful and not, and maintain its comfort.  The other choice is submission, which is what God ultimately wants, and through submitting, a person is shown God’s favor.  We must always be careful in our repentance for our sins.  Repentance is what God wants, but not as an act or as someone once told me a ‘check mark on our check list.’  He wants us to feel the weight and gravity of our guilt and sinful nature.  It is this ‘brokenness’ that brings us closer to the heart of God, and if we understand who David was, this verse underlines why he is called a man after God’s heart.

Brokenness to God is a sign of strength.  Not weakness.  We may focus on always being strong, but brokenness says that our source of strength is God.  He is our Alpha and Omega.  When we acknowledge this and realize that we are neither the beginning nor end of our greatness, only then will we truly be able to achieve all things because we are fitting into God’s image.  Not our own.  What is it that God might be trying to break you from?  What new area of your life are you willing to surrender to Him?  My prayer is that we embrace God’s love for us even when He corners us and we find ourselves trapped.  Amen.