Kingdom Calling

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer 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.

 

Kingdom Calling

 

Romans 12:1-2 is a scripture that many of us are quite familiar with and yet it is so key to what God is bringing us into in this hour.  The majority of us in the body of Christ aren’t really that much different in our thinking and purpose than the rest of the world.  We hold many of the same values, the same passions, and the same desires to excel and succeed in life.  In many ways we think and act much like the world that we live in.  If we wonder why the church is powerless and ineffectual in so many areas, we have to look at our values and priorities as Christians.  Many of us have compartmentalized God into our God box; that part of our lives and thinking we reserve for God and spiritual things, but then we have all these other compartments that are outside of God.  We may have to be tough in the marketplace so we can’t take God there.  We may be another way socially and so maybe God doesn’t fit so well there.  Our God is relegated to our convenience but He has not been our purpose for living.

God wants to do something through His people in this hour, but He not looking to a luke-warm church of half-baked and half-committed Christians, He is looking for those that are sold out to Him, body, soul, mind and spirit.  That place of full commitment is a place of sacrifice where our will is laid upon the altar and it is no longer my will, but thy will be done, in this earth as it is in heaven.  That place of sacrificial commitment requires a daily maintenance program.  It is a choice and decision we don’t make just once, but every day.  Everyday we give ourselves afresh to Him and we are not praying that God fulfills and meets our purpose, but that He reveals and enables us to fulfill His purpose.  That requires a tremendous paradigm shift and change of mindset for many of us.  Quite honestly, many of us love and want to have a relationship with God, but we want to do what we want to do.  It can no longer be about us.  We are a “called out” people and the destiny that God has called us to is a higher calling requiring a greater discipline.  It is not about dos and don’ts; it is about where our heart and affections lie.  As we purpose our lives to become this daily living sacrifice we are going to see ourselves moving away from the things that formerly held our affections.  Our love of God and His purpose will become so much stronger within us that He is the obsession and full affection of our soul.  Instead of television and movies we will desire the fellowship of the saints and the breaking of bread with our fellow believers.  We will desire to be in His service giving out in the areas of service that express His love for those that are lost, hurting, dying and in need of a Savior.  What is more, He is going to become our fullness of joy.  We are going to become so blessed and enriched through our walk and relationship that we will wonder what these earthly things ever had that attracted us to them.  This comes through the renewing of our mind in the Word and the Spirit of the Lord.  In this place we no longer think like the world or operate out of its mind.  Our mind is set upon things above.  We have caught the vision of the higher purpose and plan of God for us and for those He has called us to minister too.  There needs to be a major shift in the thinking and mind of the body of Christ.  For example, we think of having a business, that it is for us to succeed and get ahead.  Often we find that our business begins to consume our life and everything we do is to make the business succeed and us to prosper.  I learned an interesting concept when I attended a Christian business class one time.  The instructor said, “Don’t allow your business to be your priority, rather let it be the outlet for your priority.”  This is the same type of paradigm shift we need in many areas of our life.  The purpose of God is that our lives might be the expression of Him.  Do our lives express Him or do they express us?  We must define our priorities and line up our lives to fulfill those priorities.  God’s Word offers the definitions of what our life is to be about.  The truth is we are living in an unwholesome and unholy mixture of flesh and Spirit.  God is now defining us in Spirit and the flesh is getting left on the altar.  They say that the biggest problem with living sacrifices is that they want to keep crawling off of the altar.  All the more reason we must reckon ourselves as dead unto sin, but alive unto Christ.

As we travel to Zion the way will become narrower and the path more confining.  We are the King’s kids, but we were birthed for kingdom purposes.  May our hearts be drawn to living out this daily sacrifice and the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus.  He is the reason that we live, move and have our being.  Let all that we are, and each day that we live, be to His glory and praise.

Blessings,

#kent

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