Tuesday July 29

2 Chronicles 24-25

Romans 12

Psalms 22:19-31

Proverbs 20:8-10

"And so, 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. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." Romans 12:1-2

I've heard it said that the problem with living sacrifices is that they can crawl off the alter. One moment we can sincerely surrender our lives to God. The next we can be taking it back. 

Because of our nature, I think we need to give ourselves to God for His purposes everyday. Otherwise, we end up taking our lives back into our own hands.

In Kenny's sermon on Sunday, we gave us this picture of staying in our own "lane." There are things that we are responsible for and things that we can control, like our behavior and our choices. But there are a lot of things that only God can control. This things are in His lane. If we try to take control and move into God's lane, that's not being a living sacrifice to God.

In 2 Chronicles, Joash brought about repairs to the Temple. The Temple had been neglected and defiled with Baal worship. This got me thinking about how God is in the business of repairing broken things. Despite how God's house had been mistreated, it was possible to restore it with God's help. No matter how many times, the Israelites turned their backs on Him, it was always possible to rebuild that relationship. And for us, no matter how many times we may crawl off that alter, their is always the opportunity to give your life over to Him again.