Study Time w/ Lena's Journalin' To Roman's 12 Today

This morning as I read this, I realize some of us have been convinced of a lie. That being, if we make any and all kinds of sacrifices to God, He is well pleased.
This is not the whole truth. The enemy likes to take some truth and expound on it, he has done this for ages.
Those who listen to his exaggerations, become deceived.
Religion is a tool in the hands of the evil one sent to deceive those who do believe in God and Jesus. If the enemy can keep people religious, he has won a war for the hearts of men. Religion is based on deeds, actions, performance, and good works, that the contributor has somehow perceived make one look good; either before the eyes of the world, or before God.
God is Great, and he sees way beyond any deeds, actions, or performances. He looks at the heart, and that is the part of us He is after, the whole heart, not the half heart, and the whole heart freely and willingly given to Him, because of faith and in response to His great extended love.
So what is higher than sacrifices made? Obedience is, given willingly.
What is the difference?
One can do a sacrifice without the will to do it being involved. A sacrifice can be a good work done to rack up what one perceives as a spiritual point before God. God does not keep score of anything that is not freely offered of a freewill that is not acting out of a revelation with corresponding action of that revelation, and an outward reciprocation of that love.
A Living sacrifice?
With Old Testament sacrifices, people had to work for money or barter to purchase an animal suitable to the measure of the offense they’d participated in before God. Then they’d have to take the animal sacrifice to the house of the Lord and have the priest slit it’s throat, drain the blood out, and stand before God in that person’s place, asking for mercy for himself and for the persons and then burn the animal you just bought and brought as an offering for your sin. Of course you did not have to do this if you did not care about obeying God or being in right standing with Him. That was up to you to spend your time and money and life this way, in constant need of others to stand for in you, in constant need of working to buy sacrifice offerings for your sins.
If a person was supernaturally clean and did not sin, did they have to go buy anything with their time and money to bring to the house of the Lord? Did they even have to go? Did they even appreciate the priest? Could they bring God a freewill sacrifice or offering if they just desired to, for no reason at all except to give a gift, a token of thanksgiving? They could give a gift to and for the house of God, if they thought to and wanted to, out of no obligation to offer it. They could work, go buy an animal or fruit or other food items, or gold or jewels, and take it as a gift to the house of the Lord, if they thought to or wanted to take the time to do that.
Let’s look at some definitions here…

. http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/S/SACRIFICE%2C+IN+THE+OLD+TESTAMENT%2C+3/
The emphasis is laid on obedience, without which sacrifices are worthless and repugnant to God, but repudiates the idea of giving anything to God or of feeding Him. Everything already belongs to Him, He is not hungry, He would scorn the idea of drinking the blood of goats, etc ….When the heart is right, then, as an expression of true-heartedness, devotion, repentance and faith…..burnt offerings are highly acceptable sacrifices that meant worship, which is a complex exercise of the soul
Free-will offering - Free-will offering a spontaneous gift (Ex. 35:29), a voluntary sacrifice (Lev. 22:23; Ezra 3:5), as opposed to one in consequence of a vow, or in expiation of some offence.
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freewill%20offering


So this New Testament scripture today says, “I beg of you dear brethren in Christ, let’s offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice…..”!!!!
Huh?
Wait a minute, you know what sacrifice means, right? It does not usually mean - live. In fact in the OT, once something was offered up, it was also burned up. Consumed, brought to nothing, did not look like it did when it was brought in at all, no resemblance of the former in the latter.
Another thing, sacrifices were not asked of humans, humans bring the sacrifices to God, they buy something that represents them, and it takes the place of them being offered up.
So, did I read this right? You, human, person who is alive right now, offer your own body up on an altar of sacrifice? Ew boy.
Vaut iz de author of dis saying exactly?
Give
Freely
Willingly
Give
Buy what costs you everything, and don’t sell out cheaply for anything.
Bring yourself to God’s House willingly, as often as the call goes out, be willing to be in the house. When you are not assembling with other believers in the house of God, be the living, breathing house of God, demonstrating His kingdom come on earth with arms and legs.
Live Christ. Be as He is, in demonstration, as an exact replica, better than a carbon copy.
Be willing to do what it takes, to become as He was while He was on earth, as we are now. Cause His earth life demonstration to be fruitful in you. Perpetuate that. Get saved, healed, and delivered. Be a witness of His life on earth and His resurrection and ascension.
Don’t say that kind of lifestyle is for an elect few, and I’m not one of those. Change into His image and likeness! Willingly, not because you are told you need to or have to.
Forgive, as He forgave, willingly. You choose Him, because you love Him, are responding to Him, and want to be His servant while you are on the earth.
Where would Christ’s body go, what would He do, who would He join Himself to? Would he sit and watch TV all night every night for days on end with no governor? Would He be intimate with a lady (or a man) He is not married to? Would he cheat at work or on His taxes or break the laws of the land with no regard to the authorities set around us by God His Father? Or Would he believe in all He does His body is not His own, but is a representative of His Father on earth?
I believe when this is saying don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to, it is speaking of examining and judging ourselves in light of and according to the Divinely High standard of the Words of God.
Many of us like to justify ourselves and measure our rights and wrongs, and we seem to do so according to how our culture or society measures them. If we live by our own standard or a world standard, we’ll never reach for the prize through obedient action, that our Lord has for us, which really is more and more of Him in a closer walk with Him. In measuring ourselves like the world does, we get closer to the world and its ways and we distance ourselves further and further from God’s kingdom rule.
I’ve heard people use this scripture to say, “Yeah, see the Bible does say don’t judge people and they are judging me wrongly, they shouldn’t judge!”
Let me help you in that. It’d be better to be judged wrongly by the harshest human judge here on earth, especially a brother or sister in the faith, than to settle up with God Most High in eternity. Any judgments here are nowhere as strict as His standards are. Even Jesus allowed sinful men to wrongly accuse and judge Him without speaking a word of retaliation. He stood righteously before His Father in love, and as a willing living sacrifice.
Let me give an example: Maybe someone at home or at work says you are impatient, you take it as a criticism, you don’t like being criticized, you justify yourself and even argue with them, maybe you send a criticism back their way, telling them what you’ve thought of some of their behaviors, but just hadn’t voiced it yet. Now you have an ill feeling about them and you feel they are judging you.
Can you find any ounce of truth in their criticism? Would you be willing to hear the truth out of it, even if it was delivered in the wrong spirit? Could you lay down pride next time they came in to lay another criticism on you and say something like, “Ya know, you are so right, I haven’t been as patient as I could be. I apologize for offending you with my lack of patience”?
They won’t know what or who hit them!
What about if you sit in a Bible study group and something is said that you have struggled with and can’t seem to measure up to yet? Maybe you have a habit you can’t seem to break, that you’ve not yet surrendered to the Lordship of Christ in. Maybe you have not grown up into a greater faith in Him, believing His power is available for you to garb a hold of now and you haven’t yet seen by revelation of the spirit that His word is at work even in your physical body to overcome a habit or an illness, etc. Just because you have not arrived there does not mean the minister has judged you. It means God is calling and offering you another opportunity for change and growth. Look at what was said, is it true about your situation? Does it apply? Is His power great enough to cause a human to overcome in that area? Can you make a withdrawal of that appropriated power, if you believe? Can you do all things through Christ? I did not say are you yet, I said, can you?
It would be better to be “judged” now in it than to stand before God in eternal judgment where He may very well say, ”Why did you not believe in the power I offered you to overcome? Was My Son’s sacrificing not enough for your problem or situation or to overcome a habit?”
At that time, we will see whether we choose fear as a motivator rather than faith, and weakness over the given strength of Christ alive and readily available in us. There will be absolutely no excuses except that we made freewill choices for or against God and His word.
What about being an active part of your own local church? What kept you from being who you are created to be now in the earth for the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived to think someone is not giving you a place by not giving you a title to minister under.
Come under them, wash their feet, serve their vision and ministry. God gives most ministers a vision way greater than they can do themselves. He does that so that He can gather and assemble a people together for training and see if others are willing to submit what they’ve seen alone, and plant it as an offering that may get consumed inside of the vision of a corporate visionary. He does it to prove our character before presenting us to the greater world than just our neighborhoods. If we never serve locally, don’t expect to fulfill that prophecy that was given you or told you, the one that said something like, you’ll go into missions and serve the world’s peoples.
God wills to send sons out into the world, not children, who are barely learning to obey Him and won’t serve anyone but themselves. He needs His ministry on earth to be solid and successful. He does not want the peoples of the world to be a trail and error platform for immature ones to play games on. He uses the local church to prove us and then if we submit ourselves to that proving, he has fathers present proven sons to a lost world in need of healing. If a person does not exercise faith to heal his own household, why would he have faith to heal the world and be able to take back spiritual territory that belongs to God. A person has as much authority operating in them as they submit themselves unto.
Why would one not operate in a gift provide them by the spirit of Christ? Intimidation, fear, lack of motivation, lack of faith? In God’s eyes, whatever is not of faith, is sin. The world’s systems may tell us we just aren’t outgoing, but God commissioned each believer to go out and preach His words. The world may say, it’s ok to be shy, but shyness is actually pride manifested in an opposite form of arrogance. It is polite arrogance, which is a mask, because those who hide behind it are actually offending God, by not believing in His strength to overcome and they are not in love with Him enough yet to obey Him. He said, “My perfect love casts out all fear”. Fear and intimidation and timidity, are the same. They keep us from doing and being what God has made each of us to be.
We sing, “It’s all about you, Jesus…” yet when God looks at our lives and what we hold back from Him, is it about Him or about us and our comfort? The Holy Spirit came to move man outside of Himself and out of his old comfort zones. He is all the comfort we need. To stroke fear as a comforter, is to play with God’s enemy.