Consider whether your activities, actions, and words are an acceptable offering to God. In Malachi 1:8, God says that offering less than is acceptable to Him is showing contempt for His name. It’s wonderful to gather on Sundays and worship together, but so often, we are not showing our true self. Paul says that offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God is our true and proper worship. So the measure of our living sacrifice to God isn’t our best moment, it isn’t when we’re all spiffed up and on our best behavior to come into God’s house, the measure of our living sacrifice, our offering of ourselves is our worst moments.
Paul continues in Romans 12:4-8 to list the spiritual gifts that God gives us to bring glory to Him. Paul is saying that it takes us all but remember, in this section he is talking how our attitude toward ourselves in cooperation with others as we go about the tasks that utilize our gifts. Basically, he’s telling us to stay in our own lane. How many cooperative projects get derailed because folks spend more time worrying about how someone is using their gifts than they spend utilizing their own?
If you are unsure what gift(s) you have, go to this website and take the survey. Every believer has been given one or more spiritual gifts for a very specific purpose: to glorify God by ministering to people. God invites each one of us to reach out in His name. Spiritual gifts are God’s provision for the Holy Spirit to minister to people, through people.
How is God calling you to be part of the body? If you truly want to offer your body as a living sacrifice, if you want to be holy and pleasing to God, you need to discover and answer your call. Are you willing to do that?
Romans 12:1-8
Malachi1:6-8
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