Compelled to Sacrifice

If you asked me what I love most about going to church, my answer would be WORSHIP!

What I would mean by that, is that I love worshipping God with God’s people!  I LOVE singing along with the Worship Band at the top of my lungs! I love raising my hands in the air and moving my body to the beat. Dare I even say, I Love Dancing if the spirit moves me! I love hearing God’s word of Truth spoken, I love hearing His Word read, I love the opportunity to give back a small portion of what God has graciously given to me. I love encouraging others, sharing with others…I LOVE IT ALL!

I once had someone say that they didn’t like to blend their going to a concert with their worship experience at church! WHAT?

I do not understand the concept of going to a concert and feeling free to jump, dance, scream and sing along, while not feeling the same freedom spiritually during worship at church? In fact, dare I say, feeling greater freedom in church as you worship the One who has set you free!

Man is the one who has built the walls in-between, not God! Man is the one who puts up barriers and creates rules and regulations, not God! If I am going to look silly, feel free, and raise my hands to anyone, let it be in church and to God!

No where on my list of what I love most about church is the word SACRIFICE! Sacrifice is not the first thing we think about when we think about God and our experience with Him. The word Sacrifice, does not promote a warm and fuzzy feeling and does not cause a smile to spread across our face.

The word SACRIFICE, can actually cause the opposite reaction.

By definition, SACRIFICE is the “surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having higher or more pressing claim.”

By definition we are giving something up or actually getting rid of it totally by destroying it!

I believe that what God wants from us is to willingly give our lives to Him, sacrificially, and compel others to the same way of life!

In the book of Romans it says not to copy the behavior and customs of the world we live in, but to sacrifice that way of living, for God’s way of living. When we do this, God transforms our lives and we become a new person. One who lives his/her life as a “LIVING SACRIFICE,” which is good, pleasing and perfect!

The irony is that God tells us that this is “truly the way to worship Him.”

Romans 12:1 says, 

“Dear Brothers and Sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy SACRIFICE  – the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him.”

I am called to be a living sacrifice that compels others to know my Savior by the way I live my life. I am to live that life differently than the world around me. I am to not copy the behaviors and practices around me. I am to be transformed in the way I think by filling my mind with God’s TRUTH!

TRUTH BOMB

My life of sacrifice can compel others to The Savior.

When my mind, heart and spirit are filled with the Truth of God’s Word, I am transformed into living a life that copies Jesus and not the behaviors and customs of this world.

That kind of lifestyle is contagious and compels others to follow.

Speak Truth Love