ROMANS 12: 1-5
Brothers and sisters in Christ, God wants us to submit to Him and allow Him to take us to much deeper truths of how He cares for us. This is why He wants us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, and by transforming our minds, not to be caught up by the ways of the world but to know the will of God and to follow it. It is a tough pill to swallow but we must tremble in submission in order to trust the way God wants us to trust that when our prayers are not answered the way we want them answered that He has a much better plan to be found, a plan not based on the things of this world. God not only allows us to travel difficult roads but is there with us to guide and help us, so that in the end we will know the peace that comes from trusting God to get us through difficult times.
Discipleship means to build our lives into lives of sacrifice, which is offering to God the whole of who we are because of the sacrifice Jesus made, giving Himself as that sacrifice for our sins upon the cross. “God destroyed sin’s control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins.” (Romans 8:3b). To build a purpose-filled life, we need to be living sacrifices for God, which is the most reasonable thing we can do and give ourselves sacrificially. Roman 6:22 says “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life”. Freedom is not doing what you want, it is doing what pleases the Lord because you have chosen to be a servant of Christ over what your sinful nature wants. James 4:7 says “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and, purify your hearts, you double minded”.
Beloved children of the Most High God, as born-again believers we daily make a choice to submit ourselves to God for the work that the Holy Spirit does in us to “conform us to the image of Christ”. Many Christians continue living lives as babies in Christ even though they have been believers for many years. There should be a time of growth and going from milk to meat. The believer accepts His grace and provision to walk in the Spirit and not after the manner of the old nature. That work is accomplished by choosing to apply ourselves to the Word of God and to learning about the provisions that God has made for us in Christ Jesus. From the moment we are born again, we have all the provisions we need, in Christ, to become a mature believer, but we have to make the choice to learn about those provisions through study of the Word and to apply those provisions to our daily walk. We must walk the talk!
PRAYER POINT: My Lord and my Savior, help me to acknowledge You in everything so that You can direct my words, thoughts and actions in Jesus’ Mighty Name.