Lord, please give me eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind to perceive Your mercies today.
Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice: being holy (close to God) in Spirit, through your thoughts. Your thoughts pave the way of your day's attitude and feelings, and this too was the mechanism created by God for humans.
(Summary of Romans 12:1)
First, we must pray.
Because it is by God's mercies that we can even pray to be helped.
It is also by those increasing mercies that we are then helped.
And it will continually be those mercies that carry our day as we offer our bodies knowing that this is our spiritual worship to God. Spiritual worship meaning the worship that we do in our thoughts. The unseen worship such as a thankful heart and reverence. All at once, when we offer our bodies, we are worshipping on two planes. One is physical (descriptive) while the other is spiritual. (Prescriptive). So it's like going to the doctor for medication for the flu. We get our bodies moving to hold the pill, take the pill and swallow it (the descriptive part). But the belief that this pill will help us get rid of the flu, that belief and hopeful ease after having taken the pill, that is the part that is in our thoughts alone.
Likewise, offering our bodies is going to God, asking for help, and doing whatever it is we might understand as God's directive. (The pill)
Then believing and trusting that God is good and that He loves us--this unseen aspect is our spiritual worship that completes the action of taking the pill.
When we spit out the pill or refuse to trust Him even after swallowing the pill...this is our spiritual rejection of God. And I, myself, repent every day for this, but thank God none of this is without God's mercies.
By His mercies.
We will not and cannot be Holy or offer our bodies without His mercies to help us do so.
There is no act of will power or planning ahead or doing this or that.
There is first: prayer for His mercies.
How will we know God's mercies are working in us to help us offer our bodies to Him? (Which basically means we are offering our bodies to do life-giving things most beneficial for us)
Romans 12:2 says we will know by testing. By testing we may discern what were God's mercies from what were our own attempts.
What is good, acceptable, and perfect--those were God's mercies.
What was bad, unacceptable, failures--those were our own attempts.
Simple as that.
But difficult to swallow if you have a problem of God always being right and you always being wrong. That's just the basic meaning of God and human.
So in God's will, by His mercies, we never fail. Meaning that the ultimate end in God's will is always perfect and good even if the means of getting there cause momentary droughts of suffering. Maybe even a flood of suffering. A hail storm of suffering!
A mile of suffering is worth the destination of the Father's place. For compared to eternity this life is far shorter than a mile even!
Whatever sort of pain and suffering you might experience, or that you might only fear to experience, these are also inevitable occurrences because life is full of wrong people. They do wrong things, they say wrong things, and they refuse to think anything is wrong with them. So then many suffer. All kinds of suffering. Health problems, marriage problems, financial problems, relationship problems, mental problems, so many problems. These problems culminate leading to other problems. Problems beget problems. So wait. Wait there with whatever problems you have right now.
Pray for His mercies to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Yes! Pray to be sacrificed to Him, because the only way out of our problems is to kill the thoughts that are controlling the body.
But we can't kill those thoughts ourselves! How can we? Do you own a thought killing mantra? No. It is God who, by His mercies, hears us calling for Him and supplies all our needs--in this instance our need to kill the thoughts that run contrary to His.
God is real and Jesus is alive. How do you pray to God? Are your words spoken in belief or just for relief? If someone comes up to me and says I must give them $100, I will ask them why, but if they just stare at me and continue asking not hearing a word I say, I will wonder if they even know I exist. There must be a mutual recognition of one another for communication to take place.
May you pray and ask for God's mercy, which is being poured out on you today even before you ask Him! Pray to understand and see it. See the hope set before you-- the Father's place on a hill is where we are going, and He sends us air packages of mercy to supply our trip. Many will lure us to their closer homes and places of stay where things are decent and even okay, but the Father's place is where we belong because He loves us. Our family is there.
Let your minds not be turned or discouraged from the days when rain falls and you have to stall for a few days or a snake bites your ankle and you physically suffer. The Father, without fail, has air packages of mercy for every fumble along the way. Because...our Father is God, and nothing can stop Him from having us get to Him.
Pray for His mercies, they come right away.
Though they don't look as great as what you might expect, the mystery of their power is hidden in our hearts, because we know Him who sent them is God who loves us. He will have His way and nothing can stop Him. The mercies He sends us will be perfect regardless of their appearance. They may look weak or they may look useless, perhaps they might even look broken and in need of repair. But stop judging His mercies, stop your despair!
What God gives us today is for His perfect will.
By His mercies we go after a stop, by His mercies we live after sin, and today we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice by His mercies as well to guide our thoughts.
Oh sweet mercies that fall like snow in the morning. Mercies that cleanse and refresh my hostile mind. Mercies that embrace me when I start to panic. Mercies new and never ending.
You and me forever.
Jmegrey
by the mercies of God,
I urge you
to present your bodies
as a living sacrifice,
holy and pleasing to God;
this is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this age,
but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind,
so that you may discern what is
the good, pleasing, and perfect
will of God."
(Romans 12:1-2 HCSB)
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