Tag: fulfillment

Sacrifice Comfort & Junk Food to Give Glory to God and Lose Weight Too!

12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1 ESV

Can all this sacrifice of calories, junk food, comfort (by exercising) be a living sacrifice to God?

Yes! It can.

You can make a lot of the things in your life a sacrifice and it will become a form of spiritual worship.  Fasting for one is a way to demonstrate spiritual worship to God through physical sacrifice.

12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1 The Message

I love the way The Message translates this scripture. ‘Take your everyday, ordinary life’ (and every aspect of it) and ‘place it before God as an offering’.

The part about embracing what God does for you relates perfectly to how I’ve often shared with you those moments that I am reminded that “God is my source!”.  Everything in your life comes from him.

The part that says don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.  This really speaks to our whole way of life.  Not only spiritually, but through our diet and exercise we can also be counter-culture for the Glory of Jesus Christ.

We are to fix our attention on God and what HE wants from us and are promised that we will change from the inside out.  Readily recognize what he wants from us and quickly respond to it.  We’ve got to be listening, so that when we hear him, we can take action right away.

That’s so awesome don’t you agree?

If we will turn our lives & our commitment to Christian Weight Loss into a living sacrifice to him, God will bring the best out of us and develop well-formed maturity in us.  I think that sounds like another example of God’s undeserved Grace abounding blessings into our lives through our simple obedience.

Let’s do it together!  What do you say?

You Are Vital in God’s Mission & Purposes!

You’ve probably heard before the term ‘vital organ’ in reference to organs in your body that you could not live without.  What about your importance to the body of Christ?  Do you feel vitally important to the function of the body of Christ and its fulfillment of God’s purposes on earth?

You should?  Here’s why:

One Body with Many Members

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body,so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves[d] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts,[e] yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts.

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31 ESV

Well, I think in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he makes the point that their really aren’t any parts to the body of Christ that are not vital. We all drink from one spirit and are called to fulfill his purposes on earth. We are all vital and working together as one body (if we are all running a full capacity) we can help God acheive his purposes here on earth in bigger, better way.

Vitality as defined by Merriam-webster.com

1 a :  the peculiarity distinguishing the living from the nonliving

b :  capacity to live and develop; also :  physical or mental vigor especially when highly developed

2
a :  power of enduring

b :  lively and animated character – Merriam-webster.com

One of my goals for you friend is that you achieve Christian Vitality™.

A Christian that distinguishes yourself as one of God’s Living and not one of the non-living (spiritually dead or not growing) and also physically working towards that end as well.

I hope that you grow spiritually & physically in a way that is better developed with a higher capacity to live life to the fullest. A life full of the power of God and one that has been physically better developed to endure…a life that would allow God to use you for a longer period of time.

My hopes are that you are a lively and animated Christian that leads life in such a way that you are a light that shines bright and points toward Jesus as the way for others to live like you.

Here’s a challenge from me to you today…

Do you feel you are serving in a way that makes you vital to the body of Christ? If not, please takes some steps today toward getting more plugged into how you can serve.

Start small if you have to, but get started. Even serving every other Sunday in the 1st graders class can make you vital in the life of children learning about the love of Jesus.

Find YOUR Majestic Moment – they’re everywhere!

God's Majestic on Display in Creation
Find YOUR Majestic Moment Today!

One of my mentors is big on Magic Moments and although he professes to be a Christian, he’s more mainstream and focused on more mainstream audiences.

His philosophy is that at the end of our lives we’re not going to remember most of the things that keeps us busy, but we will remember the Magic Moments.  He believes we should strive to fill our lives with those kinds of moments in order to achieve fulfillment. I totally agree.

This morning I had one of those most amazing moments.  For the last week or two after I get the kids ready with their breakfast and before I jump into the getting ready routine, I’ve been trying to spend 20 minutes in the sun everyday on the deck off of my bedroom.

I’m blessed to have a view of the mountains here in North Scottsdale which are literally only 3 miles away and in my backyard.  My deck faces North so in the morning I face east on a barcalounger and was really enjoying the moment.  I started to meditate on God’s word and focusing on being grateful in the moment and the word Majesty came to mind.

God is Majestic. His creation is awesome and all around us.  We are his creation.  Our friends, our family, and all the things around us are his creation (in harmony with man’s creation).

Within a couple of minutes of these thoughts it started to sprinkle.  When I say sprinkle, I mean the kind of huge drops that often come with thunderheads When I looked up at the sky, I saw almost exactly what the photo above shows. Drops every second or two coming straight down on me as I looked straight up.  It was one of those wow moments that made me think, “hey God thanks for that you are awesome” kind of moments.  A Majestic Moment.

So, whether you are in an Urban surrounding or in the middle of the woods, try to set aside 20 minutes to have yourself an encounter…your Majestic Moment. An encounter with God, a Majestic Moment, that you will never forget.

You can have one of these moments in the middle of the woods, the desert, driving in your car.  I had one recently in a park in the middle of downtown Kansas City recently.

God’s creation and Majesty are on display for all to see…you just have to take them time to look.

Be blessed my friend as you strive to see God’s Majesty and store up your own Majestic Moments.

Share in the comments a Majestic Moment you had today, this week, or this month that you remember feeling that overwhelming sense of gratitude for God presence in your life.  Do have any? Share some things you might be able to do this week that will set you up to have one?  I want to hear from you all in the comments below.