Let's be honest does that even sound like something to get excited about? A living sacrifice??? No I didn't think so either. In the 29 years of being a Christian I have never been partial to this verse... It doe's not fit into my picture of living the American dream. What we want is a life of ease, not sacrifice. A life of plenty, not sacrifice, A life of excess actually if we are honest, not anything remotely like sacrifice. No matter how you view the word sacrifice, no matter which definition you choose it is not necessarily something I was comfortable with in my life.
This morning this verse was a part of my devotions. I stumbled over it... even reading it caused me to stutter. I however decided I needed to pray about it and meditate on it to get a better understanding of it in relationship to my First Place 4 Health program. (that is the devotional I was working on at the time) I decided it was time to "face the music" so to speak. So on went my walking shoes and out the door I went to "Walk with God" and listen to Him a bit.
here is the results of that time...
I asked God to help reveal to me what the truth was in this verse I needed to figure out and apply to my life. He brought to mind that for far too many years, after reading this verse for the first time, All I could focus on when reading it was the "Holy and acceptable to God" part of the verse. I knew I was not holy and could not figure our a way to be holy. So I knew I would never be acceptable. So I felt helpless... As the years past I knew that presenting my body as a living sacrifice meant I needed to do a bit of sacrificing... sacrificing on the portions sizes and sacrificing on my time spent "relaxing" and get moving... yet, since no matter what, I could not figure out how to be holy... well what was the point, so I would "skip" over this verse each time I read Romans. Which I must admit was not often. I really liked to just skip over the whole book... honestly I got mad at Paul the first time I read Romans and "heard" Paul say... "I do not do the things I want to do instead I do the very things I hate" i thought if even this great man of God cannot do the right thing then what hope is there for me? So I just got frustrated whenever I would read Romans so... well... I just did not read it! How arrogant I was when I was younger... whew! unfortunately this thinking kinda stuck... I will confess I still just kind of "skim" though Romans. or pick out verses that I think apply to a specific situation. (must be time to do a complete study on Romans) Anyway, back on topic... I was walking and seeking answers from God and realized that this thinking from when I was younger about not being holy and then not wanting to "sacrifice" anything especially my favorite foods and my "comfort" led to the enemy telling me I was a failure, always would be a failure and I believed his lies... I have not consciously thought that in years, but this is part of the wrong thinking deeply embedded in my brain. Thinking that needs to be rooted out and tossed in the trash heap since it is trash! trash the enemy has filled my head with. Truth is... No I am not Holy, can never be holy in and by myself. It is only through Christ. it is His holiness that God sees when He looks at me. I will sin, I will make mistakes, I have a sin nature that will never go away until I pass over into eternity. However, I need to strive to allow God to continue to transform me each and every day. I need to understand I cannot do it! I cannot make myself holy, I cannot make myself acceptable to God in anyway other than to submit to Him. Surrender all of my life to Him. Surrender my wants and desires even my battles. I need to allow Him to fight them. Allow Him to give me the strength to get up and get moving each morning, allow Him to give me the strength and the ability to say no and mean it when offered something that is unhealthy for me. Allow Him to direct my path away from the chips or the ice cream or what ever isle in grocery store holds the most temptation for me this week. He can and He will. He also will provide for me healthy and flavorful and amazing treats that will strengthen me physically, emotionally and mentally while He builds me up in the spiritual. He will be faithful to fulfill ALL of His promises to me if I allow Him to. He will walk with me to help me get moving. He will be in the gym with me cheering me on. He will share truth with me and help me pull the lies out of my mind that are wrapping their roots deeply into my subconscious mind and making me feel so defeated. He will encourage me and build me up in His loves me and delights in healing the emotions that have been trampled on by so many. He and He alone can and will heal my broken places, help me to let go of my bad habits, and throw away the hangups that have immobilized me for so many years. I CANNOT DO IT!!!! only HE CAN!!!! I need to quit trying to do His job, and instead get out of His way giving Him permission to do the work necessary to make me healthy.
God is so AWESOME.... I will continue to bask in the repair work He is so faithfully doing in my life! I pray that you are allowing Him to do some in your life as well...
Blessings,
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Defining and Refining our Vision
I love how God takes us through different seasons in life. I am beginning to appreciate how during different seasons of life how our dreams change, and things that were once very important are no longer so important and things we once thought insignificant become vitally important! I understand there are lessons learned, relationships built and concepts embraced. Then just as the winds begin to blow in a different direction things begin to shift. there are new questions, relationships change and concepts are refined. Solomon spoke of this in Ecclesiastics chapter 3 in his "time for everything" verses... you know the ones, For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.... and so on. (if you are not familiar with them look them up and read them. Remember Solomon was the wisest man whom ever lived!)
well all that to say that I have been working on a vision board. I had heard of this concept many years ago, even did one or two in my teens. then had the concept reintroduced to me earlier this week and was inspired to work on one. Interestingly today while working on collecting some pictures to represent things in life I want to be a part of my life. I discovered something very interesting...
I was irresistibly and incredibly drawn to pictures of people and things outdoors. I started to notice all the photos I was tearing out of magazines were in outdoor settings. I started to think about this and pray for God to reveal to me what this was about... Because the truth is I an not a very outdoor kind of person. After some time in prayer, I realized that has not always been true. All of my earliest memories are of being outdoors. I remembered a conversation that must have taken place when I was in first grade between my parents in the family car while driving. We had just visited two different homes. My parents had decided to sell the farm and move into town. On the way back to the farm, Mom and Dad were discussing the merits of the each home trying to decided if one or the other would be the best for us. Dad turns and looks at me and with a big smile on his face says to mom... "I know which one Kathy would like. her eyes lit up and just sparkled with she seen the large back yard and the beautiful flower gardens at the one on such and such street. She was already to set up her play area right in the middle of the yard." What a sweet wonderful memory! I realize that it was moving to Florida several years after that, and trying to deal with the heat that made me an indoor hermit. I suddenly miss very much being outside!
I sure wish the weather would turn cooler so I could spend some time outside... I'm gonna have to give this some serious thought and spend some time in prayer about it.
I encourage you to tackle a vision board... not sure what one is google it!
Blessings my friends,
well all that to say that I have been working on a vision board. I had heard of this concept many years ago, even did one or two in my teens. then had the concept reintroduced to me earlier this week and was inspired to work on one. Interestingly today while working on collecting some pictures to represent things in life I want to be a part of my life. I discovered something very interesting...
I was irresistibly and incredibly drawn to pictures of people and things outdoors. I started to notice all the photos I was tearing out of magazines were in outdoor settings. I started to think about this and pray for God to reveal to me what this was about... Because the truth is I an not a very outdoor kind of person. After some time in prayer, I realized that has not always been true. All of my earliest memories are of being outdoors. I remembered a conversation that must have taken place when I was in first grade between my parents in the family car while driving. We had just visited two different homes. My parents had decided to sell the farm and move into town. On the way back to the farm, Mom and Dad were discussing the merits of the each home trying to decided if one or the other would be the best for us. Dad turns and looks at me and with a big smile on his face says to mom... "I know which one Kathy would like. her eyes lit up and just sparkled with she seen the large back yard and the beautiful flower gardens at the one on such and such street. She was already to set up her play area right in the middle of the yard." What a sweet wonderful memory! I realize that it was moving to Florida several years after that, and trying to deal with the heat that made me an indoor hermit. I suddenly miss very much being outside!
I sure wish the weather would turn cooler so I could spend some time outside... I'm gonna have to give this some serious thought and spend some time in prayer about it.
I encourage you to tackle a vision board... not sure what one is google it!
Blessings my friends,
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Do we really Believe?
This morning as part of my devotions I had one of those DUH moments! Understanding something in a conceptual way is one things, yet when all of a sudden we "Get it" and we can apply it to our lives... that is a DUH moment! This was one of those moments.
I was reading 2 Chronicles 20: 20 - 24 as part of my First Place 4 Health Bible Study. Here are those verses so you also can read them.
20 Early in the morning they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, "Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful." 21 After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:
"Give thanks to the LORD,
for his love endures forever."
22 As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated. 23 The men of Ammon and Moab rose up against the men from Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them. After they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one another.
24 When the men of Judah came to the place that overlooks the desert and looked toward the vast army, they saw only dead bodies lying on the ground; no one had escaped."
So, the first thing I see here is that Because of the men going before the army singing praises to God, God is pleased and goes ahead of them and defeats their enemy before they ever arrive. I have to wonder since I know God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. How many times God went ahead of me and defeated my enemies before I ever arrived in their presence and I never even knew it? and how if I had been singing praises to my God thanking Him for His loving kindness to me, praising Him for His faithfulness, How many battles could I have avoided?
The second truth that jumped up and smacked me in the head this morning was Sometimes the battle is not our but God's. How many times do I try fighting battles that God never intended for me to fight? How many times do I fret and fuss and worry about something, worrying about how I am going to accomplish something when it seems impossible. I play it over and over in my head. Let's go back t the verses above... in verse 20 Jehoshaphat tells them to "Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld;" so if I truly had faith, If I truly believed in God's faithfulness to me I would not worry about it. I would not fret about it because I would know it would all be OK. Just like it was here for the army. because they had faith in God, because they went about their way praising God for His lovingkindness, God went before them and destroyed their enemies before they ever arrived. Now if you move on to verse 25 you will see not only did God fight the battle for them... He blessed them beyond measure!
So I ask you how many of us are missing out on blessings, overflowing blessings, because we fail to trust God and to Praise Him for His lovingkindness?
none of this is new information to me... But today I seen it in a very new way! Hopefully starting now and for all my tomorrows I will apply it in a whole new way!
Blessings,
I was reading 2 Chronicles 20: 20 - 24 as part of my First Place 4 Health Bible Study. Here are those verses so you also can read them.
20 Early in the morning they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, "Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful." 21 After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:
"Give thanks to the LORD,
for his love endures forever."
22 As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated. 23 The men of Ammon and Moab rose up against the men from Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them. After they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one another.
24 When the men of Judah came to the place that overlooks the desert and looked toward the vast army, they saw only dead bodies lying on the ground; no one had escaped."
So, the first thing I see here is that Because of the men going before the army singing praises to God, God is pleased and goes ahead of them and defeats their enemy before they ever arrive. I have to wonder since I know God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. How many times God went ahead of me and defeated my enemies before I ever arrived in their presence and I never even knew it? and how if I had been singing praises to my God thanking Him for His loving kindness to me, praising Him for His faithfulness, How many battles could I have avoided?
The second truth that jumped up and smacked me in the head this morning was Sometimes the battle is not our but God's. How many times do I try fighting battles that God never intended for me to fight? How many times do I fret and fuss and worry about something, worrying about how I am going to accomplish something when it seems impossible. I play it over and over in my head. Let's go back t the verses above... in verse 20 Jehoshaphat tells them to "Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld;" so if I truly had faith, If I truly believed in God's faithfulness to me I would not worry about it. I would not fret about it because I would know it would all be OK. Just like it was here for the army. because they had faith in God, because they went about their way praising God for His lovingkindness, God went before them and destroyed their enemies before they ever arrived. Now if you move on to verse 25 you will see not only did God fight the battle for them... He blessed them beyond measure!
So I ask you how many of us are missing out on blessings, overflowing blessings, because we fail to trust God and to Praise Him for His lovingkindness?
none of this is new information to me... But today I seen it in a very new way! Hopefully starting now and for all my tomorrows I will apply it in a whole new way!
Blessings,
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