When was the last time someone showed you they loved you? How did you respond? God has shown us that he loves us by sending His Son to take the punishment that was rightfully ours. Because of this marvelous gift of grace, we should want to respond and to serve Him with our lives as living sacrifices, verse 1
God never makes mistakes. He never puts us in the wrong place. You are where God wants you to be. You are there because God has a job for you. Will you respond? As you look at your church and community and what needs doing, how can you serve God right where you are?
How can we serve God where we are? The answer comes in verse 2 and this is a command not an optional extra. The command is to ‘be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ This command, each of us with God’s help, can accomplish.
To whose pattern do you conform – that of the world or the Word of God? We can only conform to God’s pattern if we allow him to renew our minds. He can do this best as we take time to read His Word and spend time with Him. Only as we stay close to the Lord and get to know more of Him and His ways will we be able to discern His will and find out that what He has for us to do that is exactly right for us and our personalities, talents and abilities.
No-one person has the monopoly on talents and gifts. We are all meant to work together as the body of Christ, verse 5 for the good of God’s kingdom and to build up the church. How are you using your gifts to benefit the church you are part of?
Interestingly, of all the gifts, prophecy is the one singled out to correlate to faith, verse 6. Gifts are given so that we can benefit and help others whether the gift is service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading or showing mercy, verses 7-8. This is the way God planned it. It pleases Him to see it so. So, we are not only helping other but pleasing God at the same time. This is our act of worship.
Too often worship has come to mean that time of singing in church. But worship is much more than this. It is living each day for God, using the gifts he has given us. That is our worship, verse 1.
Bible verses from The New American Standard Version
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A heart filled with thankfulness