Skip to main content

Sacrifices


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) 
          I have been looking forward to getting to these verses. Chapters ten and eleven were tough, but I knew twelve was coming, and here we are, and we could not have reached it at a worse time. My attitude stinks. Normally, I write these publish that day’s post, but I’m looking at this one before bed instead of after I get up.
          Life gets irritating sometimes. Right now, Dad is being “difficult.” That basically means I’m not getting my way and he isn't listening to or understanding what I tell him. I’m not sharing this as an invitation either to a pity part or to counselling from anyone on how I should be treating him. Nor am I sharing it to complain. I’m sharing it because when I left my job to care for him, I knew there were going to be sacrifices involved. Whenever you make a decision, you have to accept the sacrifices that go with that decision. That’s just the way it is, no matter how often or for how long we stamp our feet or hold our breaths.
          If we try to not accept that, it leads to a mess. So, we can accept that, and make the required sacrifices with an attitude of sacrifice: “Oh, woe is me, life is so tough, I have to sacrifice so much,” or we can make the required sacrifices with an attitude of peace and acceptance.  
          The world uses two patterns when it comes to sacrifice. The first is “No, I won’t sacrifice” and the second is the “Woe is me.” Tonight, I’m in a MMA bout with both of those. So I’m going to go to bed  and me, myself, and I are going to go have a “Your daughter” talk with God and by the time it’s done, I fully intend to reject the world’s patterns, and to make the sacrifices I’m being called to make with an attitude of peace, because then I will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, and then probably tomorrow I’ll do another blog on this passage, because I like it so much.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Pure...

            The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5)   I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) I’m probably cheating - or mishandling the Bible, but earlier I was thinking about love being pure and purifying. And hatred being pure and purifying. And anger…joy…patience… fear… jealousy… courage…lust… and other strongly felt feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Today’s verse brings purity and love together, so it’s the verse of the day, but it’s not really the focus. That means my motive for sharing it with you probably isn’t pure. As you read through my list, you   probably thought, “Yeah” about some, and “What’s she on?” about others. But consider how much hatred, a...
Post a Comment
Read more