So 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. Don’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. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2 MSG
Devotion
As I read my Bible, I often imagine myself living during that time period, especially when it comes to the writings of Paul. I imagine what it would be like to be hungry for Godly instruction; then personally receiving one of Paul’s letters written from prison. Or, how I would feel to be one of his travel companions evangelizing across the lands. Nothing about Paul’s life seems to have been glamorous or easy, but his life is one that led by example. When I open up to the words he penned, I am not simply inspired, I am transformed.
If you allow them to, the first few lines of Romans 12 can change you. To sacrifice means to give up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy. Here, Paul is instructing us to sacrifice every aspect of our lives as an act of worship in response to what God has done for us. The world tells us to live our own life; we do not owe anyone anything. The Word tells us our life is not our own (1 Cor. 6:19) and to obey God out of love and adoration for who He is (Jn. 14:15). Living a counter-cultural, sacrificial life allows God to continuously develop us into a better version of ourselves. Sacrificial living may not always be easy, but it will always be worth it.
Prayer
Father, thank you for your Living Word that teaches and transforms us. We pray every man and woman residing at The Foundry would experience the life-changing message of your Word. May they heed the words of Paul to “take their everyday, ordinary life and place it before God as an offering.” Transform their lives for Your glory and their good. In Christ’s name, Amen.
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