The tribute gave me an opportunity to really look at Romans 15:7 and consider how I live out this verse in my daily life.

Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

I’ve read this verse a number of times, but with E. LeBron Fairbanks tribute, my understanding was taken to new depths and I pray that it will change the way I approach tomorrow…and all my tomorrows.  Please read the tribute, and I pray that together, we can live a life that brings praise to God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.  – Romans 8:22

Like so many, when I hear the news or think about things that are going on around me, I get pretty overwhelmed—as in my previous post, Moving forward, where just taking another step on this journey requires a great amount of effort.  It was shortly after writing Moving forward, that I read the above from the book of Romans…and it gave me a lot of comfort.

Creation is active.  It didn’t just happen, it continues to happen.  This is why I love this passage–because it highlights the creation that is happening right now, in the present time.

Like a woman giving birth, there’s pain in the midst of creation.  And just like in the moments after both of my children were born, there is hope.  Hope for their future, hope for our roles as parents.  Hope and joy.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. – Romans 8:24-25

It is through hope that we are able to take another step.  Hope isn’t seen.  Hope finds itself in faith.  Hope and faith are linked at the most basic level.  Hope is found in the depths of creation—in the reality of life.

And hope—is not hope at all—without patience.  It’s this patience that is present in the midst of the pains of creation.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. –The Message

While reading Romans 12 last week, these verses from The Message reminded me of what “a sacrifice living, holy, well-pleasing to God” (Greek New Testament) looks like…and it’s not limited to an hour on Sunday. In fact, there’s unlimited potential to where God’s presence of grace, mercy and love, can be a part of our everyday lives.

Mother Teresa’s words echo the above verses:

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

For me, this begins with a shift in perspective. This shift may happen when I’m doing the morning dishes by moving my attitude from, “why didn’t anyone do the dishes?” to the awareness that I have the opportunity to see glimpses of love and service in these small tasks.

There have been times in my life when I yearned to see big God-sized miracles. I’m discovering that when I begin my day with prayers for God’s love to infiltrate every aspect of my life, the God-sized miracles happen in ways I would not have recognized in the past. This may manifest in the midst of a short conversation…work on the computer…and even doing the laundry. When I make a real, conscious effort to take ‘me’ out of the middle of things that I do, the mundane is transformed into a moment where glimpses of heaven are seen here on earth.

The amazing thing is that I’ve found that on my journey, ancient writings in the New Testament give us the most beautiful glimpses of Jesus’ expressions of God’s love to all those he encountered. Whether it was eating a meal with an outcast tax collector, healing a person hurting and disfigured by the horrors of leprosy, feeding thousands of people who came to hear him speak, and most importantly, giving his life on a cross as a sacrifice so that people for generations to come, would find Jesus’ Way…The Way…to follow a life worth living that doesn’t end.

The key to following The Way is to be ready to embark on the path blazed just for us where we see God in the middle of everything we do, and as such, worship God with everything we’ve got…heart, soul, mind and strength, only finding completion when we love each other as Jesus taught generations to love.

Is this path hard to follow? Sometimes. The wonderful thing is that we’re not alone, and in us, is God’s Own Spirit when we decide to follow The Way that Jesus blazed for us. When we embark on this journey, we walk with transformation in mind and soon find that we are “changed from the inside out.”

I love Africa because of its warm and vivid hospitality.

Imagine a home, which has chickens, goats, ducks, and cows but will not slaughter one to eat.

However, as soon as a guest arrives, one is sacrificed to eat with the guest.

In the same vein if a guest has no blanket, one is given to him to use while the owner of the house sleeps without a cover.

To the outside world, one might think the owner is suffering.

But this is the hospitality of our homes where all are happy with warm smiling face.

–Habib Mustafa Sebit, Sudan

This hit home for me because it made me think about my own response to the news reports focused on Africa and her people. Is my response based on the suffering there, or is it based on a love for her people? If my initial response is to the suffering, I pray that God will use that initial response to continue to cultivate a deep-seeded, genuine love for the people of Africa.

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. –Romans 12:9-10

Why do I love Africa? Because of her people.

When I read this verse, my initial reaction was that it was a major turning point—but why?

The story of Jacob begins with his struggle with Esau in the womb of Rebekah. The struggle with Esau continues with the birthright and then the blessing; Esau gave up his birthright for a bowl of stew, and Jacob disguised himself as Esau to get the blessing from Isaac. After losing his father’s blessing, Esau was so incensed with rage that he threatened Jacob’s life.

Jacob continues to struggle in his relationships and after some difficulties with Laban, Jacob and Laban acknowledge that God will watch over both of them make an agreement to let bygones by bygones. It’s right after this that Jacob prepares to meet Esau.

As he’s preparing to meet his brother, Jacob takes a number of precautions to facilitate a positive outcome when he and Esau do meet. He sends everyone on ahead only to find himself in the middle of a struggle through the night and until daybreak. Just after this struggle we read the verse, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” ( Genesis 32:28 )

This verse got my attention because Jacob is not only wrestling with a man, but he’s also wrestling with God. During this struggle, there’s no delineation between what’s happening between the physical (the ‘man’) and the supernatural (God)—to put it another way, Jacob’s struggle is with man and God at the same time. And the amazing thing is that if we think about it, we can see that he’s not only wrestling with man and God, but God is also the ‘coach’ that gets him through the wrestling match. It’s out of this struggle that Israel comes to be.

The entire Old Testament not only tells the story of the struggle between man and God, but it’s also through the stories in the Bible that we see over and over again how there’s no delineation between the physical and supernatural. This theme continues in the New Testament in the person of Jesus; he is both man and God, thus personifying both the physical and supernatural. In fact, Jesus is the perfect example of the physical and supernatural.

What does that mean for us? The struggles we face in life are not only with man, but also with God–the important thing is to figure out who we’re wrestling with. Additionally, everything we do is in both the physical and supernatural realms—we are in the world, we are in God’s presence, and it’s through Jesus that we can persevere, overcome and be inspired–Jesus is our ‘Life Coach.’ Like dropping a pebble in a pond, the ripples from the things we do and say travel well beyond the physical impact of the pebble hitting the water; the impact of our actions extends into the supernatural realm. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God– this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)

© 2005 Ginny Rogers

It’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind…get up in the morning, go to school/work, come back home, eat, maybe watch tv and then go to sleep so you have energy tomorrow to get through another day. Before you know it, the weekend’s come and gone and the cycle continues. Do you think that’s what we were created for?

Okay, maybe you’re thinking that you don’t have much of a choice about going to school or work–but what about rethinking your perspective on who you’re doing it for? How about shifting your focus from “whoever” you feel is making you do “whatever” to thinking about how you’ve been given an opportunity, in every minute of the day, to change that same “whatever” into doing “something.”

In the verse above it says to, “fix your attention on God” because when you do, “you’ll be changed from the inside out.” That sounds like a promise to me. And to be honest, I want– better yet, I NEED– to be changed from the inside out. I’m thinking that if I change my “whatevers” to “something” for God, my daily grind has the awesome potential to be transformed into daily “offerings.” I love the fact that the scripture above says that if I refocus my life, then God will bring out the best in me–I DEFINITELY need that!

© 2004 Ginny Rogers