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Let your light so shine...
by Janelle Goodwin I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:1-2) Here we learn that it is our reasonable service to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. If we think about the sacrifice that Jesus laid down for us by dying on the cross, then we must be willing to live a life for Him. We need to lay down our desires in order to fulfill the will that God has for us. That is our sacrifice. In order to fulfill His desires we need to be pure and blameless before each other. Some might think that this is too much to ask for, but God tells us that this is our reasonable service in order to be acceptable unto Him. After all, Jesus did not think that it was too much to ask to lay down His life for us. Christmas time is when we celebrate the birth of Christ. At that time we think about Mary and how she was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to Jesus. Also at Christmas time is when we think of snow. I love seeing that perfect white blanket. I always think that it was so pure and clean looking. But I always hate how the snow looks after people start to get out in it. One person will go out and make tracks in it, that was not so bad, but then since one person went out others decide to go out. Once every one gets out and makes tracks the snow gets mixed in with the dirt of the ground and it is no longer clean and pure looking, but dirty and corrupted. That is exactly what happens to us. We are pure and innocent for as long as we stay that way; but then if we allow one person to once in to corrupt us, it will be easier to let other things come into our lives. Once we try something we think that was not so bad, nothing happened and we try it again and again until we are not able to control ourselves. God tells us to abstain from all appearances of evil. Every decision we make regarding our bodies; needs to be made with the mind of Christ to portray purity in every thing that we do. So how do we make sure that our bodies represent the purity that they need to represent? We have to make sure that our inward bodies are pure. Whatever is on the inside will shine through to the outside. We should place the importance on the inward appearance. It is most important for our hearts', souls and minds to be pure, for the pure in heart will see God. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:21-23) We need to test everything to be sure that it is true to the Word of God. We need to accept that which is good. We need to keep away from anything that is evil. As we do these things God will make us pure and completely holy. As we devote ourselves to Him, our soul, mind, heart and body will be blameless and faultless unto the Lord. God is the only one that can allow this to take place in our lives. When we have Him first all other things will fall into place. 1 Corinthians 3:16-19 tells us that if any man defiles the temple of God, He will destroy them. Many times we think of the temple (or house) of God as being the building where we have our church services. We think that it is very important that the house of God is kept clean and up to date with all of the latest features and technology. After all, God dwells there and we do not want Him to have a dirty place. Well here the temples of God are the Christians. See God dwells in us too. If we care so much about how the church building looks; then we need to care about how the church people look too. Since we are the temple of God, if we defile His temple, then He will destroy us. God does not want us to be a part of the world; He wants us to be peculiar people. God wants us to be holy, for we are His temples. 1Corinthians 6:19-20 says that if the Holy Ghost is living in us, then out bodies are not our own and whatever we have is not ours, but it belongs to God. God bought us with the price of His own son Jesus Christ; therefore we need to glorify God through our bodies and spirits. Being different seems to be the "in" thing now days. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing saying that it is just them, that they are different. Well, it is time that we as Christians start to be different. We need to start being the peculiar people that God has called us to be. Our life should be lived as a life of no regrets. When it is our time in Heaven we do not want to stand before God worrying about what we have done in the past. We need to think about each decision we make and how it will affect us for the cause of Christ. We should not be ashamed of anything that we do in our life or to our bodies. But with all boldness present ourselves with all Godliness. We need to be consistently magnifying God in all that we do, say or think. We have a choice, it is up to us, we can live fleshly or live for Christ, we are better off living for Christ. We must let our manner of life be so that it shines the gospel of Jesus Christ. Above all else we need to live in a way that brings honor to Christ for what He has done for us on the cross. For if we stand for God, striving together for the work of His gospel, then we will not be afraid of what the devil will do to us. We will allow the testimony of our salvation to shine through our lives when we choose to follow Jesus Christ as our Savior. Lady of Virtue Ministries started as Janelle Goodwin attended Bible College in upstate NY. Janelle became burdened to see souls saved from eternal condemnation. Upon returning home from Bible College, she also became burdened to see women of the world develop characteristics of a Proverbs 31 Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |