My Life As An Offering

What does it mean to follow Christ day in, and day out? This morning I received a devotional, it was from the Message translation.

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. Romans 12:1

My life as an offering? How do I realistically do that? I know I don't want to offer a “ho-hum” existence as an offering to God. I don't want to offer a day that I barely roll out of bed, grumble to my kids about work, spend the day waisting time, and end up back home parked in front of the TV while I think about how depressed I am lately. What a terrible offering!

I want to offer my best to Him! And doing that means living with the highest integrity and honor. It means I am honest and trustworthy in all that I do. I don’t cheat on my time clock at work or on my income taxes. It means that I don’t tell lies, even small ones that seem not to hurt anyone. It requires me to take care of things that are trusted to me. It means I care more about teaching my children the word of God than watching TV. It means I can say no to temptations that previously had a hold on me. It means I help others before I consider helping myself. And it means I resist grumbling and focus my attention on the will of God in every part of my day. It means that I live a life worthy to offer before our most Almighty, Holy, God.

Wow.
THAT there sounds like a very tall order.

Let me be the first to say, I do not live this life all the time. Some of those things are easier than others. My selfish nature pulls at me constantly to be self-serving and sometimes untruthful. How, in the world (pun intended) does one do all these things all the time? It sounds like you would need to be down-right perfect!

The key I’ve found, to simply have a willing heart and faith in Christ Jesus. When I am honestly willing to live my life as an offering, Jesus is willing to strengthen me to live this way.

I once spent several days agonizing over the fact that I couldn’t increase my faith in God to provide. I was wrought with worry over whether or not I understood why He provided, and IF He would or not. I felt guilty when I thought I was not following Christ to the best of my ability.
But one night while I was getting into bed, the Holy Spirit brought this thought to my mind:
You may not be capable of increasing your faith, but all you need to do is believe that He will increase your faith. Christ is within you, you only need to have enough faith to believe that HE is capable. Can you do that?

It was the most joyful thought for me. That revelation that I didn’t have to believe in myself. I only needed to believe in Christ to do the work in me. Yeah, I could do that.

Our world is conditioned to think that God helps those who help themselves. This idea is wrong and doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible.
The reality is that God helps those who cannot help themselves, and He’s done that work through Jesus Christ.

I cannot live a life worthy of offering to God. But Christ within me lives that life. My job is to trust in Him to do this good work. Philippians 1:6

Love you guys!!