A dear friend and I were talking recently and she told me that her husband was memorizing Romans 12. I decided to take a break from my Psalm reading in The Message and see this chapter through new eyes. All I can say is WOW!! I am going to excerpt just a bit of it here:
1So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out.
This kind of goes along with the heart transplant that I started asking God for on Sunday. It's critical that we take our everyday, ordinary life and actually place it before God. I am reminded as I read this that many of us are in danger of becoming desensitized to the ugly things that are part of our culture....language, promiscuity, dress, etc. It's all changing. These verses are a gentle (OK about as gentle as a 2X4) reminder that we need to fix our attention on God so that we can be changed from the inside out.
Paul goes on to say:
So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, 6let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.
If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; 7if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; 8if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face. 9Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it.
I love verse 6. It's so easy to get caught up in the "I wish I was more like so and so..." or "I wish I had..." and try to be something we aren't.
And the final verse quoted above might be the biggest challenge of all.....Love from the center of who you are....don't fake it.
I am asking God to help me love from this deep inside me....when it's hard....when people are unlovable...and when my first reaction might have been different.
So again, I sing: Create in me a clean heart, Oh God!!
2 comments:
Thanks Susan, this was a good message for me, especially after cryng on a friend's shoulder this morning. Sometimes it's hard "playing 2nd fiddle," and remebering that God will use whatever we do for His glory. Thanks for letting God use you to open other's eyes.
Maryjo: You are most welcome!!
Lynn: It is hard playing "second fiddle"....but HE will use you. I'm praying for you, you know that!!
Post a Comment