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Church News
27th April 2015
Most people have heard the phrase "Body, Soul & Spirit". The phrase actually comes from the bible e.g. 1 Thes 5:23. Often, we compartmentalise these areas, and only allow people into certain individual parts. We might, for example, allow people to know us, and spend time, physically in their company, but we are not giving our all.
In Sunday's message, we looked at Romans 12, where Paul urges us to give our all to God in worship. To give ourselves, our "entire selves", as living sacrifices to God, and to allow him to work though us, in whatever what He decides to. This can be a very scary concept. Often, as people, we will say, "Ok, you can get this close to me, but no closer", but this is not what God wants.
God demands all of us, not just the parts that we feel comfortable giving Him, and we can often find, that when we put up these boundaries against Him, is when He seems farthest from us. It is in these situations, that it is more important than ever to make that commitment and to let God in to every part of our lives. God gave us His all, and for us to then hold back parts of ourselves from Him, is to do Him a disservice.
We are often so scared of letting anyone in, that we shut everyone out, including God, and we need to realise that He see's everything anyway, but He can't help us fully, if we don't let him in. God loves us and wants to be there for us and help us, but we need to be ready to let Him.
Mark 12: 29-30 says this: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord alone is God. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Here, Jesus is speaking, and he Commands us to love God with all we are and with all that we have. We can't pick and choose what parts of ourselves we give to God, because he knows, and it is almost like we are saying that we don't trust Him fully. That we don't trust Him with all of ourselves. That we are not prepared to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.
In my message, I used the analogy of a man, who had a third class ticket on a ship. He was given a first class one, but when it came to board the ship, he went to the third class area, though he was holding a first class ticket. He then showed the ticket to someone several days later, and is moved up to first class. Afterwards, he is so angry with himself that he wasted all that time in third class when he could have been in first. This is true of our experiences. God has given us all first class tickets, but we so often close ourselves off from God and keep moving forward with our own third class ticket.
I implore you today, let God into every part of your life, and give yourself as that living sacrifice to Him.
Have a great week!
Pastor Phyl
PS: Feel free to connect with me on Facebook or Twitter!
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