Romans 12:1
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship
Living sacrifices....I struggled to understand what the really meant for years. How do I do that?
Now that Christmas is over, Easter is approaching, which means, so is Lent. When Trey started leading worship at Liberty Hill, a Methodist church, I learned to observe Lent and Ash Wednesday. I did not grow up Methodist and I totally thought of it as something only Catholics do. I know, I know, I was totally wrong. I didn't even know what it was so I started a little research project on my own and here is what God showed me. Lent, is the period of the year leading up to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, penitence,and self-denial (fasting)— for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. It lasts for 40 days, the 40 days before Easter. The forty days represent the time that Jesus spent in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Most people pick something to give up during the 40 days of Lent (food, TV, computer, etc)as a rememberance of Christ and His sacrifice.. This was my first exposure to fasting and what it meant. On Ash Wednesday,the beginning of Lent, we get ashes on our foreheads to honor Christ as the ultimate sacrifice, the fulfillment of the old testament law, the replacement to animal sacrifices. But really, those ashes on our foreheads symbolize that WE are the living sacrifice, that we must die daily to ourselves so that Christ can live in us. I finally understood what all that meant when I read Purpose Driven Life. Warren says that we have to die everyday to ourselves. As living sacrifices, we have to ability to crawl off the altar. We have to willingly place ourselves back there every morning when we wake up. Fasting is a fantastic way to do that. You offer God a huge piece of yourself everyday, thus dying to your flesh and becoming that living sacrifice. If we starve the flesh, we will feed the spirit....and God will fill that starving flesh with Himself...the greatest gift of all.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship
Living sacrifices....I struggled to understand what the really meant for years. How do I do that?
Now that Christmas is over, Easter is approaching, which means, so is Lent. When Trey started leading worship at Liberty Hill, a Methodist church, I learned to observe Lent and Ash Wednesday. I did not grow up Methodist and I totally thought of it as something only Catholics do. I know, I know, I was totally wrong. I didn't even know what it was so I started a little research project on my own and here is what God showed me. Lent, is the period of the year leading up to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, penitence,and self-denial (fasting)— for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. It lasts for 40 days, the 40 days before Easter. The forty days represent the time that Jesus spent in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Most people pick something to give up during the 40 days of Lent (food, TV, computer, etc)as a rememberance of Christ and His sacrifice.. This was my first exposure to fasting and what it meant. On Ash Wednesday,the beginning of Lent, we get ashes on our foreheads to honor Christ as the ultimate sacrifice, the fulfillment of the old testament law, the replacement to animal sacrifices. But really, those ashes on our foreheads symbolize that WE are the living sacrifice, that we must die daily to ourselves so that Christ can live in us. I finally understood what all that meant when I read Purpose Driven Life. Warren says that we have to die everyday to ourselves. As living sacrifices, we have to ability to crawl off the altar. We have to willingly place ourselves back there every morning when we wake up. Fasting is a fantastic way to do that. You offer God a huge piece of yourself everyday, thus dying to your flesh and becoming that living sacrifice. If we starve the flesh, we will feed the spirit....and God will fill that starving flesh with Himself...the greatest gift of all.
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