What Will Your Life Say?

What Will Your Life Say?
by David Brenneman

A Living Sacrifice
"Therefore, brothers, 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 service of worship" Romans 12:1.

    God takes great pleasure in worthy sacrifices. In the Old Testament God gave detailed instructions for how His people were to give their offerings. He declared that these brought a "pleasing aroma" to Him (Leviticus 1:13, 17). When the Israelites gave an offering to God, it was no longer their own; it belonged entirely to God. God would accept only the best that people could give. It was an affront to Almighty God to offer Him animals that were damaged or imperfect in any way. God Himself met the standard for sacrifices when He offered His own Son as the spotIess Lamb. Only the death of His perfect Son worthy enough offering to atone for the sins of mankind.
    Now, God asks us to lay down our lives on His altar as a living sacrifice. Just as it was in the Old Testament, our sacrifice once offered, cannot be reclaimed. We belong entirely to Him. We cannot make a partial sacrifice of our lives; our offering must be wholehearted.
    Therefore if you are a Christian, your life is not your own. Rather than dying, however, God asks you to live for Him as a living sacrifice.  Every day, you are to offer your life to Him for His service.  You do not serve Him in your spare time or with your leftover resources.  The way you live your life for God is your offering to Him.  Relentlessly pursue holiness so that your offering to God is unblemished and acceptable to Him (Ephesians 4:1; Philippians 1:27; 1 Thessalonians 2:12). Experiencing God Day-by-Day

How much of your life have you really put on the altar for God?
How much of your life does Jesus really have?
How much of your own cross are you really carrying?
How much compromise have you really allowed into your life to make your view of life easier and more enjoyable?
How many idols would Jesus point out to you that are in fact in your life?

Lots of questions but all of them can probably be reduced to yes or no answers or to a number.

We indeed can do what we read in Malachi about being people who've spent their income on themselves rather than allowing the blessings of God to flow through us to others.

We indeed can be greedy by redefining what greed is as the world has done.  Because we know their definition of it is much easier on the conscience than our own.

We indeed can misplace our love for Jesus and place it on things or other people or on groups of people and deny that it's the same thing.

Satan's schemes are laced and loaded to the hilt in deceptions that we fall for from the earliest of ages.

We are the same kinds of people that Jesus walked among over 2,000 years ago.

We are really no different other than  in our day and age people aren't wise enough or aren't willing to acknowledge the work of demons in our society.  Here we are 2025 and demons are everywhere doing evil on levels that stagger the imagination and nobody wants to acknowledge that's what is going on.   The spiritual war is still on-going.  Satan lost at the cross of calvary but he's not given up trying to keep people out of Heaven.

His best deceptions are just to keep Christian's from living out what Jesus said...and make them look forward to it.   He easily made Adam and Eve look forward to the 'fruits' of eating of the tree of knowledge.  

Our world has been in a global war since Adam and Eve.  It took the perfect sacrifice of God's own Son on the cross to satisfy the sacrifice needed to save people through the forgiveness of sins based on faith in Christ alone.

The Bema seat of Christ.

That which all Believer's will face after the Rapture of the Church.

Our lives in their entirety will be tested as by fire of truth.  Our thoughts, our intentions, our actions all gone through from the day we were accountable until either the day of death or of leaving the Earth at the Rapture.

Do you really really consider what that really means?

We have the choice in the here and now to live a life approved by God in Christ Jesus.  We have the choice in the here and now to effect changes to show to whom we belong.  We have the choice in this here this now to live as lights in this world. 

We also have the choice to hide that light to which we were entrusted to let the world see.

You see, my Dear Reader, when we hide that light out of fear of others or fear of what God might have us do we let fear win and it's not just us that suffers loss but so does the world.  Our light was meant to shine before men so that people might see our good works and glorify our Father in Heaven.

We read from Jesus too that we were entrusted with gifts from the Spirit of God to be used in service to God.  Have you thought about yours?  Have you been figuring out what they are?  Have you been faithful to use what you were given?

Jesus is coming soon.  Soon what was our life in this world will be literally set in stone.  Unchangeable.

Jesus wants to tell each and every Believer "well done!" but will He concerning you?  We read that many will watch the sum of their lives go up in smoke and the only thing will be that while yes they were saved they had NOTHING to give back to Jesus in appreciation for all He did on the cross to save them.  NOTHING.

Good works are not enough.

Both the Believer's and the unknown to themselves unbelieving will all have done good works.

Do you have a relationship with Jesus?  THAT is the game-changer.

That is what makes one a sheep in the folds of the Great Shepherd.

Going about your day or days without any conversations with Jesus should scare the life out of you. 

Going about your day or days without any thought that you might have missed reading your Bible ought to disturb you to no end.

Going about your day or days with no compassion towards others and whether or not they are heading for Heaven or Hell ought to both your heart as it bother's the heart of God.

Wake up.  Jesus is at the door of Heaven.  All it will take is Him taking 1 step out to call His Bride the Church to come and that's it for all Believer's lives, the good, the bad and the ugly of them all.   That's it for all who were on the fence about coming to Christ.  The next 7 years of literally Hell on earth are what's next.  Grand deceptions by a world leader, all the judgements of God poured out on the Earth. 

Jesus is coming...what will your life say of how you lived for Him?

All NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission.
New American Standard Bible
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