lifestyle

"If we are to offer ourselves up for as long as we have being; if this offering up is accomplished in spirit and according to truth; and if the condition in which this is to be done is one of continuing personal holiness, it follows logically that for the true Christian, all of life, not just fractions of it, is a continuum of action up action, faithfully and knowingly made into offering after offering.  Therefore, all things done, whatever they comprise - all work, all handiwork, all of everything - can only be one act of worship after another.  True worship is to love God so much that an offering is the only possible action, even though a world full of such actions can never suffice" - Harold Best
 

Worship is an offering.

It's a scarier offering than just giving our money away, though.  And it goes way beyond singing nice songs to Jesus at church once a week, even though that is an important act of worship.

This kind of offering costs us our life, more and more of it, until we are worshiping perfectly, with every moment and every action and every ounce of life in us.  

The first part of Romans 12 gives us the elements of true worship.  Check out the first verse.  "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 true and proper worship" (NIV, my emphasis).  See the word "offer" right there?  We are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices, day by day, moment by moment, for the glory of the one true and living God.  Some other translations use the work "present," but it describes the same action of giving yourself, over and over, for the use of the Kingdom.

Because we have the benefit of God's mercy, worship (or "offering") is the only thing we can do in response.  Nothing less will do.  Life then becomes "offering into offering," from thought to thought, word to word, action into action.  Every moment is offered up to our Creator and Redeemer. 

I don't know about you, but I'm not there yet.  Most days I'm not even close.

Sometimes it's helpful for me to think about it the other way.  If I'm not presenting myself to God, I'm presenting it to something else, which can be a relationship, career or any number of other things.  That's a sobering reminder.

One of my favorite professors, and Old Testament prof named Daniel Block, told me one time that "everyone worships."  That is true.  We either worship the one true and living God, or we worship a God-substitute.

Be proactive.  Follow hard after Christ.  Make your life a series of offerings to the living God.

Blessings.

Harold M. Best, Music Through the Eyes of Faith (San Francisco: Harpers, 1993), 149.