WATCHWORD:
1 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. 2 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. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. Romans 12:1-3
13 So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. 14 So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy. 1 Peter 1:13-16
1 See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. 2 Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. 3 And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:1-3
Meditation:
Fourth Day
This past Saturday I attended the Celebration of Life for a dear friend, I’ll call him Mac. Mac and I, and a number of others, have been members of a Bible study group for more than 40 years. During the Memory sharing part of the service I spoke of the time when he and I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit, together. We had been part of the Bible study for less than a year, when our Pastor urged us to participate in a weekend retreat. Neither one of us wanted to go, but when the pastor asks…
On the drive over to Columbus we were two grumpy men, who were going where they did not want to go, doing something we did not want to do, being part of something we did not know anything about. Besides, we didn’t think we needed the weekend, and so we drove on. Before we reached our destination we vowed that if we didn’t like what was going on, we would signal the other, and make our escape. That plan was thwarted when the leader of the retreat asked us to turn in the car keys! We hesitated, then decided to endure, after all our pastor asked us to attend.
Three days later we were two different men in that car traveling home, back to what we knew was our ‘Fourth Day’. On that retreat, we had met Jesus in ways that we have never considered, and it changed us. We now knew that we were children of God. We knew that our lives had changed, and our conversation reflected that. We had been washed in the blood of Jesus, the Lamb, in the sense that the Word of God had new meaning for us.
From that weekend on, our Fourth Day, we sought to walk closely with our Lord, sometimes failing, always forgiven as we continued our walk with Him.
How’s your Fourth Day? When scripture tells us to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice it’s really saying put aside your old self, You didn’t know any better then, take on the new of Christ and walk with Him. Maybe your life was refreshed in Christ on a weekend, or perhaps it happens in the midst of a crisis, or in the quiet of your morning with the Lord. Whenever it happened, it is the morning of your Fourth Day, a never ending day that continues until you meet Mac and those loved ones that have gone on before, and you’re with the Lord. May God bless your journey.
Note:
We share a generous number of scripture passages, each one a personal message to you, the reader, to me, the scribe following the nudges of our Lord and Savior. So be it my friend, so be it.
Mac, Pray Us Out of Here:
Precious Lord and Savior, I don’t know when Your Holy Spirit filled my heart, and changed my life, but I am so grateful that I am new in You. Teach us, guide us Heavenly Father, allow us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices and continue to transform our lives to the glory of our Lord, and lead us on the way that You would have us go, always according to Your will. In Jesus name. Amen.
