messy heart.

one of the coolest things about Scripture is that you can take just one simple verse and study it for years and find a million ways that it’s applicable and relevant and meaningful.

Well, Romans 12:1,2 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God— this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is— His good, pleasing and perfect will.” 

To me, this has always had sexual connotation. Like, if you do things God’s way and you don’t live together or have sex before marriage, then you’re gonna find that God’s plan for marriage is good, pleasing, and perfect. And I do think this a reasonable application for this verse, but recently I’ve been convicted about how this verse applies to virtually any area of my life. 

Usually, when I’m sitting around wasting my time on facebook, I’m not thinking of it as though I am “offering my body” to that activity— but that’s kind of what it is. In that case, I am offering my hands to type, my eyes to read what’s on the screen, my brain to process the ridiculous things I read on there, and most of all, I am forsaking the opportunity to do anything more meaningful with my time. (Now, I don’t believe that the internet is bad and there are many ways in which it can be used for God’s glory. This online blog post is, in itself, a benefit of the internet, and hopefully it will be used for His glory.) But, when I choose facebook over prayer, reading the Bible, or even interacting with friends face-to-face, I am offering myself to facebook instead of to the molding hands of the Father. Sounds kinda dumb, doesn’t it. So, we can look at that verse and see how the manner in which I spend my time is definitely an area in which I can offer myself to God sacrificially— I can devote time to doing what He tells me to do instead of doing what I feel like doing. That is much smaller than pre-marital sex, but it’s so much harder to avoid sometimes. Because it requires a constant battle against what I feel is worthwhile for every second of every day.

Just thinking about surrendering that much makes me tired. Doesn’t it feel like an insurmountable task? But the beautiful thing about God is that when we decide to move towards giving Him the rights to our time (or our money, or the way we speak about people, or our dating relationships, etc), I believe He offers Himself to us in return and gives us the resources and the strength and the perseverance to make progress. It’s not about perfection, either. God can very much see the state of our hearts. He wants children that follow Him out of faith, not because they think He is fickle and will punish them for failing. That’s not the Gospel.