A letter to Wanda...

I felt like I should share this with you, and this is not just for you but for me as well: 

Romans 12: 1-2 

"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. DO NOT BE CONFORMED to this world, but, be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God (?), what is good and acceptable and perfect."

God lead me to this verse last night and the way I wrote it above is how words poped out to me as I read it. 

IT IS OUR SPIRITUAL WORSHIP TO GIVE OUR BODIES TO GOD AND DO NOT, (I repeat) DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THE PATTERNS OF THIS WORLD. 

 Why do we try so hard to please people?  Because we have a fear of man. A fear of being judged, not measuring up, not being successful, smart, skilled, ect, ect.... for me, I still continue to struggle with not being content in my body. Is it because the models tell me so? Maybe. Is it because athletes tell me I'm not fast enough? Probably so. Is it because our culture is so deeply embedded in how we look on the outside rather than what our heart looks like? Yes.  But why should I even care!? If we love Jesus, our gaze should be fixed on Him. He is our Lord, our Love. We should have no other idols before him and yet we still do.

 1 John 1:15-16 says, " Do not love the world or the things in the world. For if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions- is not from the Father but is from the world." 

Wow. God's love isn't in us if we put the things of the world infront of him. We'll that appears to be so. "You shall have no other God's before me", we've all heard that. When I was little I was thinking statues of gold and bowing down to them now I'm thinking mannequins  in store windows and girls who bow down to celebrities, fame, success, and the person staring back at them in the mirror.  Don't But the fact of the matter is, we can't serve two masters. We can't love God and love the world. 

"If the world hates you, know that it has hated me (Jesus) first. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because  you are not of this world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." John 15:18-19.

So why would we even want to conform to what the world wants us to be in it's cookie cutter, american dream, keeping up with the Jones, and always trying to one-up someone when all its going to leave us with is emptiness because we don't have God's love in us, which is the only thing that can keep us happy. 

"And the world is passing away alone with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. " 1 John 1:17.

This is not to say we should not take care of our bodies, not study, and not try do our best. Going back to the original verse it says that it should be our spiritual worship to present our bodies to God. That our bodies should be a living. And by living, God means it as in not dead, because when we are living to this world we are dead to God. 

"Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" - 1 Corinthians 10:31. 

Even living for God, things get tough, especially now that we know the world is going to hate our guts. But that is why we "set our minds above things above" (Colossians 3:2). 

It says that "by testing we may discern what is the will of God". How will we know the will of God? We know the will of God by knowing God's heart and knowing that his will is good, acceptable, and perfect and trusting that whatever "test" may come that it is by these atributes of God that we believe good things will come. So we continue to fix our gaze on Christ and take a new grip to life with our tired hands and we strengthen our weak knees. We mark out a straight path for our feet so that even though we are weak and bruised, we will not fall but become strong. (Hebrews 12: 12-13).