LIVING SACRIFICE

I left the Mormon Church about a year ago...

I was prompted as strongly as I ever had been to do this…

Since, one of the things I have looked back and judged the church for is that it seems to produce people that know and are closer to the RULES and checklists than they are to GOD...

I told myself I wanted something different... a real relationship with God, not just a list of things to do and not do.

So I started seeking that out... a relationship that was JUST between me and God.

I fully committed to study every morning. Pray, meditate and journal.

After a year and over 600 journal entries, I sat down this morning and realized...

I built myself a new checklist.

I have been spending more time personally in scripture than I ever have in my life... and somehow turned it into the same ritual I was trying to get away from.

Read. Write. Pray. Close the book. Feel good because I was "close to God".

Then go be impatient with my kids. Talk crap about someone behind their back. Spend the rest of my day chasing what I WANT for my life... never questioning if it was truly GODs will.

This morning I read Romans 12, it talks about presenting your life as a LIVING sacrifice to God... not a Sunday sacrifice, not a morning sacrifice, not an avoidance of sin... a LIVING ENGAGED sacrifice.

I read the verse OVER AND OVER again... I was overwhelmed with the Spirit, tears came to my eyes, and I prayed like I haven't prayed in quite some time. Repented, asked for strength, and connected with MY GOD, my Father, my CREATOR...

Not a book, not a checklist, but HIM...

The book and the ritual helped me get there, but the book and the ritual alone are dead.

I am deeply grateful for this reminder I received this morning, it is not about avoiding the checklist... but remembering the REASON we made one in the first place.

Remembering that it is not a checklist that makes us worthy or not… the checklist is not the point.

Living a life of LIVING WORSHIP, LIVING SACRIFICE is the point.

Stay in the fire and never stop progressing. — Braven Grant