And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. NLT
Many people like to do things for God. It’s like they think they can help Him configure His plan and purpose for them and the lives of others around them, but rarely do they stop to ask God what it is He finds acceptable in them and for them. As the passage above explains, the true way to worship God is by giving ourselves completely to Him. We do this by yielding our spirit, our soul, and our body wholeheartedly and give Him total control of every area of our lives.
Not doing this will put us in a place where we would be considered to be offering sacrifices to demons and not to Him. 1 Corinthians 10:20 says, “No, I am suggesting that what the pagans sacrifice they offer [in effect] to demons (to evil spiritual powers) and not to God [at all]. I do not want you to fellowship and be partners with diabolical spirits [by eating at their feasts]. AMP
To explain further, we need to seek God to present to us not only His promises for us but also the pathway He has chosen for us to walk out our process until the fulfillment of these promises. Just because He gave us a promise does not mean we are going to manipulate our way to its fulfillment in a way that God did not intend and before the timing He has allotted for its manifestation.
Thinking and acting this way makes us idolaters and people who sacrifice to demons and not to God. In addition, only God knows what foundations we are being supported by at the time He gave us the promise and the bigger the promise the more the work He has to do in us to ensure that when we reach our destination, we have not given ourselves to demonic influences that will keep us from staying in that place. We can get there, but another thing is to be able to remain in that place.
There is a way and a time to prepare until the fulfillment of God’s promises to us. The world and its system want instantaneous things. They manipulate their way into the manifestation of the things they want. But we are not of this world and there will always be a process for us on the way to our destiny, designed to shake the wrong foundations in our thinking that have led us to the wrong actions and has kept us from entering the kingdom of God and all His righteousness.
Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides. AM
This means that we are called to learn the ways of God and the right way to think, talk, and act and continue to practice these things at every level of the process until we have mastered them and they have become second nature to us because it will be the very thing that will sustain us in the place God has assigned for us through His promises.
This means that we are called to learn the ways of God and the right way to think, talk, and act and continue to practice these things at every level of the process until we have mastered them and they have become second nature to us because it will be the very thing that will sustain us in the place God has assigned for us through His promises.
Only He knows how long and what it will take for us to get there. Galatians 6:7 warns, “Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap.” AMP
We want to sow to the Spirit of God and not to demonic influences. We want to sow the fruits of the Spirit and not the fruit of the flesh that is guided by demons as described in Galatians 5:19-26,
19 "Now the doings (practices) of the flesh are clear (obvious): they are immorality, impurity, indecency, 20 Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger (ill temper), selfishness, divisions (dissensions), party spirit (factions, sects with peculiar opinions, heresies), 21 Envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, 23 Gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law that can bring a charge.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and appetites and desires. 25 If we live by the [Holy] Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. [If by the Holy Spirit we have our life in God, let us go forward walking in line, our conduct controlled by the Spirit.] 26 Let us not become vainglorious and self-conceited, competitive and challenging and provoking and irritating to one another, envying and being jealous of one another." AMP
This passage is self-explanatory. God wants us to sow to His Spirit the things that will help us be conformed to His image and likeness and that will set us apart from the world and its system.
To Him alone be all the glory. ■
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