The Quotes.
“With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.”“So [Therefore] brothers and sisters, since God has shown us great mercy, I ·beg [urge; appeal to] you to offer your ·lives [selves; L bodies] as a living sacrifice to him. Your offering must be ·only for God [holy] and pleasing to him, which is the ·spiritual [or authentic; true; or appropriate; fitting; or rational; reasonable] way for you to worship.”
“I BESEECH you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service.”
Romans 12:1 various translations.
The Take.
Question; Should You Expect Praise For Doing A Good Thing That Benefits You?
Turns Out GOD Considers Sexual Purity Our Reasonable Service. Don’t get me wrong it clearly pleases Him but He also just expects you to want to do what’s beneficial for yourself too as in typical common sense decisions. To anyone who says ‘God didn’t say that Honey, Paul did’. Here’s your answer, well The Holy Spirit inspired all of scripture so that means nothing He didn’t want in His book, made it into His book.
It is very humbling yet heartwarming to remember that all the rewards we receive for godly living including sexual purity (especially in today’s culture) are just the cherry on top of our many blessings which only prove GOD’s generosity because you’re supposed to want to enjoy the common sense benefits that are consequences of doing good things suggested nay commanded by God for yourself anyway without needing to be bribed or cajoled by an applause.
Let’s be real, the world will never ever applaud you for being sexually pure and It never has and never will, if anything it will in fact mock, belittle, ridicule and attempt to shame you if you permit it to wild that much power over your mind. God said do not have sex with people you’re not married to, the world says not only will I preach and teach you the opposite, I’m going to penalize and straight up persecute you for obeying God and telling others to follow you as you do. THAT, my friend is exactly why our walk of faith is so difficult.
Every true follower of Christ is counter cultural. Period. It’s not a fluke it is by design. You must learn that you’re not alone and you’re not crazy dear sibling in Christ. Take heart knowing that you’re not the only one bearing this burden. Especially in this times when it literally feels like the pressure to comply with culture is exponentially increased and cracked up all the way to a hundred.
Purity will never be popular or mainstream in culture until the day that you turn on your TV and see JESUS CHRIST on your Morning NEWS. I’m not talking watching watching someone talk about Him, I mean actually watching THE Jesus probably somewhere in Jerusalem literally being streamed live on your TV. I personally know only one era when that is even conceivable and will happen. Yes It’s coming but it’s not here yet so do all you can to save your heart by heeding what Jesus said about Him being hated by the world and how that fact should shape your expectations of said world as His servants on the earth. It will help you greatly. You’ll spare yourself a significant amount pain by making this single mind adjustment.
It took a while but I believe I’ve finally moved from a heart posture of anger towards the world to pity. These days I understand the tone of the text “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” That ladies and gentlemen is the sound of great love that has finally arrived at pity after a brief time spent in frustration laced with complete contempt. Don’t worry I still don’t comprehend the whole asking GOD to forgive vile acts by evil actors WHILE He’s being murdered on the cross by people who He could have easily squashed like bugs part but I’m growing. Baby steps and then strides people, baby steps and then full on leaps and gallops because that amount of self control is still foreign to me. Like What?!! The Lord is helping us all though so I can recognize my current incompetences while simultaneously celebrating my progress.
I have finally clocked and completely accepted that It’s not a coincidence that there’s a name for nearly every kind of prejudice held by humans against each other except the one against Christians. It’s not an accidental flaw in the design but an international feature of this system. Trust me, I’m putting you on game now, The sooner you see and accept it for what it is and adjust your expectations of their beta algorithm accordingly, the better reality becomes on your heart. I truly hope I don’t need to spell out that God’s Word rightly divided through The Holy Spirit has to be the guide for all such adjustments.
With that, I guess all that’s really left to say is Thank GOD for Jesus! Dear dear Siblings! What would we have done without Jesus? We would have been royally sccrrrewed. Thankfully we’ll never have to find out what that could have been seeing as He gave us a second birth into our new creature-hood already by agreeing to die for us. Don’t just take my word for it here’s He’s word on it. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. What this means is that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a brand spanking new person bro. Like The old life is gone; a new life has begun.
Not gonna lie, lately I find myself thinking about just how grateful I am for YESHUA more and more. Thanks to Him we now have The Holy Spirit. That really is in itself #nuffsaid but make sure to find out what’s in your welcome package receivable in ONLY Him. You may start in the image below. The Point is, there are just soooo many blessings and benefits in God that many things practically seem like cherries galore despite on top of an already freakin awesome cake despite the attacks of the enemy. So much so that only a fool or a phony wouldn’t be thankful after being save by Jesus. Truly. No wonder Jesus said this. So if you’re ever feeling defeated or just downright exhausted by your peculiar yet common fight as you continue on your walk of faith with God, do all that you can to never “forget not all of His cherries”
You’re very welcome.
Bodily, Soul-ish and Spiritual Purity Is The Norm In Our Kingdom.
