Sorry these posts have been so irregular recently. Summer has been helter skelter for me.  I will post tomorrow and then I will attempt to post next week as well. I’ll be preaching Camp Meeting at Shiloh in Rankin County starting Sunday and will be preaching through the next Sunday. If I have internet access I will up date each day.  If not, I may not be back into the routine until the first Monday in August. We’ll see!

Romans 12:1-2 is one of my favorite passages of scripture. It’s one of those neat passages that has so much to see and look at when you first see it, but the deeper you look, the more that you can see.

Listen to what it says:

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. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

We could spend a lot of time talking about not conforming to the world and how our lives, our thoughts, our dreams, who we are, they should be different from the world all around us.

We are called to be holy. To be holy is not be perfect, it’s to be different. We start being different by having our mind in the right place – on Jesus.

But, look above it. There’s that great verse about being a living sacrifice. And I love that image of us, as a living sacrifice, laying our entire lives down upon the altar of God. I love that image, I love that though, I love thinking about.

Our entire life, it is a sacrificial offering to God. Everything we do. Every moment of our lives, everything. It’s a sacrifice to God!

And that’s awesome. Except for this one thing. A living sacrifice can get up off the altar and walk away. So, today, we lay our burdens down upon the altar. We lay our worries down upon the altar. We lay our fears down upon the altar. We lay our sins down upon the altar.

And, because we are living, we walk away. We pick them back up, and we walk away. Because we can.

It’s not a one time laying these things down – fear, worry, sin, etc – it’s a daily laying them down. Every day. Because as a living sacrifice, we can crawl off the altar, and take our stuff with us.

So, today, lay it before Jesus. And tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after. And the day after. Lay it there. Give it to Him. Daily.

Every day. Lay it down.

And in doing that, we will that peace, hope, and life that we are seeking. May we do it, daily.

Don’t forget, you can click here to download Asbury’s mobile app and read these devotionals, as well as listen to my sermons on your smart phones