Romans 12:1 says that you are to present your body as a living sacrifice. Think about the days before Christ when people presented animal sacrifices. Christ came to change that practice when He died on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice. Christ wants you in His service not as a dead sacrifice but as a living one. He wants not material things sacrificed but lives sacrificed on the altar of service to Him. He does not want a life half lived. He wants a life fully invested in Him.
What would it mean for you to present your body as a living sacrifice? Think about each part of your body and how you can present it to God for His glory.
Hands
Eyes
Feet
Stomach
Sex organs
Ears
Tongue
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Stop and ask God to help you remove barriers to surrendering that member of your body to the Master’s service. Ask Him to help you by making you aware of the Holy Spirits presence when you are tempted to use that part of your body in wrong living.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Week 5 Day 2: Doing Things Your Own Way
God created the physical body to be good, but when people sinned, the body was affected. Although the body itself is not evil in itself, it is weak and susceptible to the flesh (the sinful nature). God expects you to honor Him through your physical body and to decline to let the flesh, or the sinful nature, take over. The body has the capacity to do good if the flesh is not in control.
One way to keep your body from being susceptible to un-Christlike ways is to know who you are in Christ, to stand firm in that identity, and to share your convictions with others. You grow in your faith when you learn to give your Christian testimony. You always need to be prepared to give witness to your life as a Christian by sharing your testimony. Your testimony is your script for witnessing to others your changed life in Christ; to ‘witness’ is to ‘give evidence’.
Your testimony should include four facts about your conversion that should be shared with unbelievers.
1. My life and attitudes before I followed Christ
2. How I realized that God was speaking to me
3. How I became a Christian
4. What being a Christian means to me
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Start to prepare an outline of your testimony, by answering the four questions above.
One way to keep your body from being susceptible to un-Christlike ways is to know who you are in Christ, to stand firm in that identity, and to share your convictions with others. You grow in your faith when you learn to give your Christian testimony. You always need to be prepared to give witness to your life as a Christian by sharing your testimony. Your testimony is your script for witnessing to others your changed life in Christ; to ‘witness’ is to ‘give evidence’.
Your testimony should include four facts about your conversion that should be shared with unbelievers.
1. My life and attitudes before I followed Christ
2. How I realized that God was speaking to me
3. How I became a Christian
4. What being a Christian means to me
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Start to prepare an outline of your testimony, by answering the four questions above.
Week 5 Day 1: Surrendering Yourself to God
God intends for you to have a high regard for your body because it is the dwelling for His Spirit. God created Adam’s body from the dust of the earth. God intends for the body to perform three essential functions:
1. Identification as a unique person – the way you look
2. Participation in the world – the way you act
3. Communication with others – the way you relate to others
Without a body you would have no contact with the physical world. Your body allows you to influence the created order. Because you have mobility, you can move from place to place to perform God’s tasks. Because you have strength in your body, you can accept assignments for Him.
In Genesis 1:27-28, there are three different things God intended for human beings to do in the world.
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”
God expected you to be fruitful and multiply, to subdue the earth and make it useful, and to master or have dominion over living creatures. Your body makes you feel at home in the created order.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Stop and ask the Holy Spirit to work in your life so that you have victory every day with God – in the control of your body and in other areas that come to mind.
1. Identification as a unique person – the way you look
2. Participation in the world – the way you act
3. Communication with others – the way you relate to others
Without a body you would have no contact with the physical world. Your body allows you to influence the created order. Because you have mobility, you can move from place to place to perform God’s tasks. Because you have strength in your body, you can accept assignments for Him.
In Genesis 1:27-28, there are three different things God intended for human beings to do in the world.
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’”
God expected you to be fruitful and multiply, to subdue the earth and make it useful, and to master or have dominion over living creatures. Your body makes you feel at home in the created order.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Stop and ask the Holy Spirit to work in your life so that you have victory every day with God – in the control of your body and in other areas that come to mind.
Week 5: Present Your Body
This week's verse is 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Short week, only three days!
Do you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Do you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Week 4 Day 5: The Higher Calling
Worldly persons want to do what their emotions, mind, or will tells them. In contrast, spiritual persons obey the higher call to do what the Holy Spirit reveals. Doing what God says is right, rather than what you want to do, is a conscious act of the will. Christians understand their obligations to act rightly toward others even if they do not fell like doing so. If you wait until you feel like doing right, you may find yourself excusing your failure.
Not only do your feelings influence the way you act, but the way you act also determines how you feel. You can change your feelings by changing your actions. In Matthew 5:24 and 7:1-2, Jesus’ solution for many emotional responses was to command an action rather than a feeling.
In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, the Bible defines love as something you do. Love manifests itself in the way you act. Acting lovingly toward someone, even if you do not feel like doing so, is the essence of love. The Holy Spirit can help you do this.
Each fruit of the spirit is more than an emotion. Each is a strong character trait. You develop each by having a close relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit and by growing in maturity through experience.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Not only do your feelings influence the way you act, but the way you act also determines how you feel. You can change your feelings by changing your actions. In Matthew 5:24 and 7:1-2, Jesus’ solution for many emotional responses was to command an action rather than a feeling.
In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, the Bible defines love as something you do. Love manifests itself in the way you act. Acting lovingly toward someone, even if you do not feel like doing so, is the essence of love. The Holy Spirit can help you do this.
Each fruit of the spirit is more than an emotion. Each is a strong character trait. You develop each by having a close relationship with Christ through the Holy Spirit and by growing in maturity through experience.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Week 4 Day 4: A Biblical Response
Although emotions are spontaneous, the actions they produce do not have to be. The Bible teaches that you are responsible for how you choose to let your emotions cause you to behave. You cannot escape responsibility by blaming your behavior on a negative feeling or on the person or circumstance stimulating that feeling.
You may believe that someone wronged you or that your family background programmed you or predisposed you to act a certain way. You may think: ‘I can’t help that I act this way. He made me angry when he criticized me’. But can someone really make you angry and make your respond improperly? Regardless of what happens before the event, the choice of how to respond is yours. You can sin in that response, or you can choose to honor Christ. One sin does not justify another.
Read Luke 6:27-28, Philippians 4:6-7, Philippians 4:4, Ephesians 4:25-26, 31-32, 1 Peter 2:1, and 1 Corinthians 13:4.
These scriptures give a biblical response for hate – to do good to those who hate you; anxiety – that you are to pray to God and not be anxious; joy – that you are to acknowledge the source of goodness; anger – that you are to avoid sinning from anger and to settle matters quickly; and envy – that you are to lay envy aside and to love others.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Think about how Christ managed his emotions on the cross. He could have raged, threatened, blamed, or scolded. He could have called on angels to protect Him. Instead, He sought God’s will in His emotional responses, even to the end. Although He expressed sorrow, concern for His mother, and His human physical need, He surrendered everything to God’s will, even when that meant suffering and dying on the cross.
You may believe that someone wronged you or that your family background programmed you or predisposed you to act a certain way. You may think: ‘I can’t help that I act this way. He made me angry when he criticized me’. But can someone really make you angry and make your respond improperly? Regardless of what happens before the event, the choice of how to respond is yours. You can sin in that response, or you can choose to honor Christ. One sin does not justify another.
Read Luke 6:27-28, Philippians 4:6-7, Philippians 4:4, Ephesians 4:25-26, 31-32, 1 Peter 2:1, and 1 Corinthians 13:4.
These scriptures give a biblical response for hate – to do good to those who hate you; anxiety – that you are to pray to God and not be anxious; joy – that you are to acknowledge the source of goodness; anger – that you are to avoid sinning from anger and to settle matters quickly; and envy – that you are to lay envy aside and to love others.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Think about how Christ managed his emotions on the cross. He could have raged, threatened, blamed, or scolded. He could have called on angels to protect Him. Instead, He sought God’s will in His emotional responses, even to the end. Although He expressed sorrow, concern for His mother, and His human physical need, He surrendered everything to God’s will, even when that meant suffering and dying on the cross.
Week 4 Day 3: Giving Thanks in All Things
The third step is to ‘Thank God that He will help you master it’. You do not have to understand a situation to believe that God will work in it and to be grateful that He will do so. In 1 Thessalonians 5:18, it says ‘Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus’. And in Romans 8:28, it says ‘We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’.
You are to give thanks in all things, not just the ones you understand or the ones that please you. If you are a person of faith, you can do this because you believe that God will work all things together for good. In Acts 16:25, Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns to keep themselves from reacting harmfully to being jailed. When by faith you trust God to work in a situation and when you thank Him for doing so, your mind is open to consider the benefits that may result.
Even though you may not like to think about feeling fear, anger, loneliness, or jealousy, these emotions can sometimes have good results. Fear may keep you from taking unnecessary risks or may prompt you to take extra precautions in a situation. Anger might lead you to right a wrong or an injustice. A person who is lonely may learn to rely on God to fill the emptiness in his or her life. Jealousy can make you realize that you need to work more diligently in a relationship or to strive harder toward a goal. From joy you may reach out in kindness to others or may give praise to God for a development in your life.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Are you relying on God to help you with your emotions?
You are to give thanks in all things, not just the ones you understand or the ones that please you. If you are a person of faith, you can do this because you believe that God will work all things together for good. In Acts 16:25, Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns to keep themselves from reacting harmfully to being jailed. When by faith you trust God to work in a situation and when you thank Him for doing so, your mind is open to consider the benefits that may result.
Even though you may not like to think about feeling fear, anger, loneliness, or jealousy, these emotions can sometimes have good results. Fear may keep you from taking unnecessary risks or may prompt you to take extra precautions in a situation. Anger might lead you to right a wrong or an injustice. A person who is lonely may learn to rely on God to fill the emptiness in his or her life. Jealousy can make you realize that you need to work more diligently in a relationship or to strive harder toward a goal. From joy you may reach out in kindness to others or may give praise to God for a development in your life.
Daily Thoughts: What did you get from today’s study?
Are you relying on God to help you with your emotions?
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