You are the Church

“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40 NLT)

Jesus showed that loving God is the key and that loving others will follow naturally; because if you’re loving God with all that you are, you can love all of God’s creations - that [love others] isn’t the same as getting along with [others].  I’m pretty sure that’s why Paul told us that we had to work on renewing our mind, since our flesh has a tendency to be very selfish and to get our bodies into submission - we have to conquer the flesh and change the way we think.

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 NLT)

This ‘living and holy sacrifice’ is like killing off our old ways, habits, thoughts and actions of our flesh.  Now that we are capable of seeing our past sins, we can recognize the holiness that is now in us; our spirit, as new creations in Christ - has cast light on the darkness and the struggle of the old (flesh) versus the new (spirit).  We see who we were (fleshly, decaying, and sinful) and what we are to become - that is, we are to become like Christ.  

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.  Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.  (Ephesians 4:21-24 NLT)

Jesus spent His time healing the sick, loving the unlovable, and feeding the hungry - if you notice He did all these outside of the church walls.  That means, when we’re not in church - we ARE the church; but some also take that to mean that they don’t need to attend a church either.  Jesus was in the temple on the Sabbath - and today, although everyday is the Sabbath - we need to realize that as the church, we each have a part.  Jesus is the head of the church and just as we need the head - we also need the hands, the feet, the eyes and the ears. God’s plan for the church is perfect, but if you believe your way is better you can take that up with God.

Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.  He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. (Ephesians 4:15-16 NLT)

Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function,  so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. (Romans 12:4-6 NLT)

Day 1 of 21-Day Challenge: Don't Give God Your Left Overs!

Honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase (Proverbs 3:9 NKJV)

The best of all the firstfruits and of all your special gifts will belong to the priests. You are to give them the first portion of your ground meal so that a blessing may rest on your household. (Ezekiel 44:30 NIV)

“As you harvest your crops, bring the very best of the first harvest to the house of the Lord your God.” (Exodus 23:19a NLT)  

  

FirstFruits – the firstborn of the flocks and the first vegetables and grains to be gathered at harvest time. The Hebrew people thought of these as belonging to God in a special sense. They were dedicated or presented to God on the day of the firstfruits, a part of the celebration of Pentecost (Numbers 28:26; 2 Chronicles 31:5). The counterpart today is the “first” of our income or profit, and may be expressed in the worshipping of God with our tithes.

When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord.  Abel also brought a gift—the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.   “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”  (Genesis 4:3-7 NLT)

When I did my Bible reading yesterday this passage struck a chord with me. GOD Himself warned Cain about sin and he refused to listen. Abel’s gift to GOD was accepted because it was his firstfruits, the best of the best; showing GOD that HE was worthy, that HE was elevating GOD above all else in his life. I imagine Cain was coveting his crops, he was clinging to what he valued more and giving to GOD only what was left over. That made me think, do I give GOD my left overs?

When Cain started off putting his worldly treasures above GOD, he showed his faith wasn’t in GOD, but in himself and what he could do instead of counting on GOD. When Cain didn’t listen to GOD’s warning, he took offense, he let his heart get hardened, and he kept his mind on what GOD didn’t do for him and let his thoughts go where they didn’t need to be; he allowed sin to control him.  

The problem here is not wealth; the problem is putting wealth, possessions, ourselves or anything else before GOD. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to start a 21-day challenge of waking up early and starting my day with GOD before I did anything else. I want to put GOD where HE belongs in my life, in all of our lives – FIRST! 

Sacrifice of Praise

Psalm 136:2

“I praise your name for your unfailing love and faithfulness; for your promises are backed by all the honor of your name. “

Praising GOD and giving thanks for every day. Being thankful for the moment we have, not dreading the next, troubles come and go, and whether we’re on the mountain top or in the valley, we’re to give GOD praise. We don’t praise GOD just because life is good, we praise GOD because HE is so good! “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” Lamentations 3:22-24

Praising GOD when life is great and everything is going our way, not so difficult, yet we’re to praise GOD even when that’s not the case.  “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” Hebrew 13:15 Notice this verse says to ‘continually offer the sacrifice of praise’, we’re to ALWAYS offer praise, our situation doesn’t dictate our praise, our praise is to be unconditional. 

The Greek word, thusia, was used for sacrifice, which comes from the root word, ‘thuo’. ‘Thuo’ is a verb meaning “to kill or slaughter for a purpose”.  So when we offer GOD a sacrifice, it can be that we are killing our pride, fear, or even laziness. When we’re suffering, the last thing we want to do is to thank GOD for HIS blessings, it’s not natural, and that’s why it’s a sacrifice. Praise isn’t always what we want to do; it’s what we need to do.  The sacrifice might also be related to pride, for example, if we get rewarded for some achievement, instead of telling everyone, "yes, I worked really hard for this", try saying, "thank you GOD, I couldn’t have done this without you".

Also in Hebrews 13:15, “the fruit of our lips”, we all bear fruit with our actions and our words. Remember Jesus’ words, “A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad…For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak.”  Matthew 12:33-36  No word that leaves our mouth is without profit or loss, the words we speak do not disappear, they will be remembered (unless we repent of those words and ask GOD for forgiveness).  Don’t you want your words to be remembered for encouraging and praising GOD?!

The good fruit and bad fruit, makes me think of it this way. We feed GOD the good fruit, when we praise GOD through the tough times, we’re feeding him the fruit of our words, we’re allowing HIM to grow larger in our lives, and we’re giving HIM the praise HE deserves!!  BUT when we give bad fruit, we’re feeding the devil, we’re feeding him the negativity and misery he thrives off of, we’re giving him a foothold into our lives, we’re allowing the enemy to steal our joy and letting him defeat GOD’s will for our lives. 

So we have to train ourselves, it isn’t natural for us to give praise when times are tough (remember our bodies are only flesh, it’s our spirit that is the new creation, and our minds have to renewed to match our spirit). “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 12:2 The saying, ‘garbage in, garbage out’, speaks true here. We get out of ourselves, what we put in, the same goes for our diet, exercise, the TV shows we watch and books we read.  This is why reading our Bible every day is so important; if you keep putting GOD’s word into you, it will come out of you. You will find it easier to speak encouraging words and your outlook on life will change dramatically. If you listen to praise and worship music a little bit each day, you will find joy in your spirit even when the day is going wrong, you will discover that offering those sacrifices of praise are less of a sacrifice and more of a gift. Once we have conditioned ourselves with praising GOD and we are praising HIM out of habit, we will be able to bless others (and ourselves) by speaking words of encouragement and not defeat.

Here's a final thought on how we will ALWAYS have a reason to be thankful, regardless of our circumstances: We can ALWAYS be thankful for Jesus Christ . We can remember HIS sacrifice, HE came to earth, bore our shame and punishment, HE saved us before we ever knew HIM, HE loved us before we loved HIM, HE died for us before we gave HIM our hearts. And we can be thankful that today, HE sits at the Father’s right hand and righteousness is HIS, we have HOPE, we have FAITH, we have the Father’s LOVE, we have a comforter, the Holy Spirit, we are never alone and we know that no matter what we may go through on this earth, we are GOD’s children and we will overcome any circumstance and situation, we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus! So we can offer a small sacrifice to HIM, we can offer HIM a sacrifice with praise and thanksgiving in any circumstance we are going through, because the price we pay is nothing compared to the price HE paid for us.