Living Sacrifices

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12: 1

God has been asking me to give some things up. He's been asking for some time, but I have been resisting, making excuses, looking for evidence to the contrary, thinking wishfully. However, a few weeks ago, He made himself very plain. First, in the following passage from Praying God's Will for Your Life by Stormie Omartian, which was shared with me by my friend, Amy...

...a time comes when each of us must place our desires and dreams in the hands of God so that He might free us from those that are not His will. In other words, you secure your future by realeasing your dream to God and, if need be, allowing it to die. If you've always had a certain picture of what you think you should do, you have to be willing to let that picture be destroyed. If it really is what God has for you, He will raise you up to do that and more. If it isn't, you will be frustrated as long as you cling to it.

Often the desires of your heart are the desires of His heart, but they still must be achieved His way, not yours, and you must know that it is He who is accomplishing them in you, not achieving them yourself. God wants us to stop holding on to our dreams and start holding on to Him so that He can enable us to soar above ourselves and our own limitations. Whenever we let go of what we long for, God will bring it back to us in another dimension.

Then, the very next day, I read this blog post at Desiring God. Please read it. It is another very short post, and you will be blessed.

The bottom line is this: God doesn't ask us to give things up in order to be cruel or to punish us. He asks us to give them up because they are distracting us from our relationship with Him or because they are lesser things. Lesser things are not bad in and of themselves, but they have little or no eternal value, and they take time away from more profitable pursuits.

Yesterday, I read Isaiah 56, and the phrase "who chose the things that please me" has stuck in my mind ever since. Lord, enable me to always choose the things that please You.