Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

The Cost of Discipleship Pt.2

Hallelujah! Amen! Let's turn back to Romans 12, and continue along the lines of what the real cost of discipleship is. We see that it's the full expression of our lives being submitted to His lordship and honoring Him in our words and in our deeds as the apostle says, "in all manner of conversation [1 Peter 1:15]." That word just means, the way we live our lives. We're called actually to realize that we are those epistles that are being read of men. Not only of the world looking to us as evangelists, but really as we look at each other, and the admonition that's been given to us to be, "followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises [Hebrews 6:12]." And "knowing those that have the rule over us, [Hebrews 13:7]." As we look around and realize that they shouldn't have to be overseen with a grievous heart and with all kinds of trials, but that there's a people that are pursuing God and we're recognizing the privilege it is to be a part of a community of God and the body of Christ. All of these things that are expressions of our thanksgiving for the finished work of the Lord.

We saw David in his time of repentance as God was ordering him to make preparation for the temple site, and we saw that he said that he wasn't going to offer anything to God that hadn't cost him. So, we look at our own walk in the Spirit and we have to ask ourselves, "Am I really wanting to make that kind of a commitment to the honor and the glory of God? Am I going to be taking the path of least resistance or am I going to really, as that good soldier, discipline myself that I might please Him that's called me and placed me?" What kind of an attitude do you have? Are you just getting by? Or are you really wanting to strive toward that excellent spirit that God's called us to. So that's part of what we're talking about. What is a disciple anyway? The word disciple comes from a root of "discipline." We ask ourselves the question, "Am I disciplined in my living? Can I say that I'm a disciplined individual?" Now, discipline is self-motivation. Discipline is also someone who is submitted to discipline. You're willing to take chastisement and reproof. You humble yourself when people externally come to motivate you and you say, "That's right, Man!" You recognize your weakness and you thank God for the external motivation. How many of you are thankful for your brothers and sisters that help externally motivate you? Are you? You should be. Or do you get bummed and ticked off when somebody comes. "That's none of your business, you've got problems of your own." Or do you see it for what it is? People who are jealous for God's glory and wanting you to be the best, sweet smelling savor of an offering that you can possibly be. How do you view it - the chastening of the Lord? Do you see it as preparation to the honor of God in our lives? Do you understand that that chastisement is for His glory and not our own success and stature within the kingdom. We realize that it's really multi-faceted in this process of discipleship that you and I are involved in.

Paul says in Romans 12, verse 1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice..." It's interesting that when he talks about a living sacrifice, you don't just get to die once. You say, "Well that's it. I've been offered wholly to God." It's a lifestyle of offering ourselves up. It's a continual offering. An offering that's resembling the One that sent us, as we begin to see that we're just members of a larger body. That we're living stones that have been placed into this edifice called, "The Church of Jesus Christ, " that which contains the glory of God. He tells us that we're to make that daily presentation or another way, really, he's talking from Romans chapter 6. Turn over there for just a second. Look at verses 13 through 19. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice." Paul says in the sixth chapter as you look through this portion in verses 13 through 19, he says, Romans 6:13: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive [living sacrifices] from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." We know that this is a constant process because we're warring against the flesh and the Spirit's lusting against the flesh and the flesh against the Spirit so that we can't do those things that we would. There's a desire within us, but our flesh is resisting and all of the environment around us is negative. So you and I have to constantly make that presentation to God. It's a matter of will, isn't it? How many of you start the day out understanding that I have to make a presentation of myself to God, an offering up today to obedience. An understanding of what I'm going to accomplish today and on the job instead of running late and catering to my flesh and running down the road trying to eat a doughnut and put lipstick on at the same time. I'm putting on the armor of God and preparing myself for the day that's at hand. Presenting your bodies, yielding your members, Paul said, as instruments of righteousness. Not to the flesh, not like everybody else does, but a people that are disciplined and aware of the warfare that's at hand.

He goes on in the sixth chapter, he says, "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey..." Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants [an offering] to obey...whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" It's the one that you're offering yourself up to, the one that you're serving, the one that's taking your admiration and your worship, that that you put worth upon. As we saw this morning, that's what worship is. It's what we put worth on is what we are worshipping. And what we put the most worth on is who is our lord. As he's speaking to us we understand that the apostle then rejoices and said, "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin [slaves, powerless to worship, powerless to offer our members up to righteousness, bound in the kingdom of darkness] ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye [are now able to offer yourselves servants to] righteousness [A living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God]...as you've yielded [verse 19] your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness."

Now, it's obvious that when you were a sinner you didn't have to have some ritual that you woke every morning and said, "Okay, now I'm going to yield myself to you, Satan, and I'm going to go out and sow to the flesh." And you begin to confess how well you could move in the flesh that day and how much lust you would be able to express upon a given subject or item. It was just natural to you. You recognized the treasures and you pursued them. You had an appetite for those things. It's what you loved. You couldn't get enough of it. You made preparation for it. Do we have an appetite like that for the Lord? Or do we have to go through some kind of a rote spiel to kind of 'psych' ourselves up and remind ourselves that, "really I can't do that because I'm a new creature and..." By letter of the law we try and walk in the Spirit. I think it's important tonight that we really search our own hearts and ask ourselves, "What have I given myself to, really?" Our lives are all being offered up towards something. What are you giving your life to tonight? Some secular pursuit, a vocation? Are you giving your life up right now in the pursuit of a life's mate? Trying to lay all the traps. Because, you know, Father really doesn't care. His Word didn't really say that it's not good for you to be alone. So, we have to make provision for ourselves and in the process then we deny the Word of God by our own pursuit, really believing that God doesn't want that for us, that He won't make provision.

Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not talking about being interested in other people and understanding that there is that desire within us for this communion and this union together and all of these things. I'm talking about an inordinate pursuit. I'm talking about that's the most important thing. It occupies your thoughts. When you should be serving in the community, you're so caught up with obtaining this treasure that you're unable to function in the liberty of the Spirit that you used to be able to move in. You're not able to worship, you're not able to pray, you're not able to pull this out of your mind. Even in the great times of worship and praise like this evening, it's there. You need to deal with that. You need to ask yourself the question, "What is it that I'm offering myself to? Am I pursuing that relationship? Am I pursuing that secular vocation, this certain status that I want to reach in society?" What are you giving yourself to? Are you taken up now with the latest fad in diet, the latest little fad that's going around in clothing and makeup and all of the other different things?

It's very interesting over the years how the fads come and go and you look back and the '70's are cycling back in; it looks like they've been trying to anyway, they haven't taken over yet. Thank God! They're still trying to make that run. I think probably this generation is stupid enough to buy it, so it could happen. I didn't buy it the first time. I was influenced by it, but I just didn't like it then and I'm sure not going to participate in it now. I think it's sad when you look at today's fads and these kids are piercing themselves and tattooing themselves and in ten years, when the fad's gone and this girl comes up and she's looking for a man and she comes up and sees somebody that she's really interested in, and he turns around and she looks like that Queequeg or whatever his name is in Moby Dick. You can't get that stuff off. It's there for life. I love that commercial where that guy's in there getting his tattoo and didn't have enough money to pay for it. What are you offering yourself to? Are you wanting to be accepted of the world so you have to run around with everything that can be pierced? Pierced and tattoos and freaky hair and all of this kind of stuff? It comes and goes; there's no new thing under the sun. It's not the fad; it's the fact that you're empty. I loved that skit with the empty hole that the guys did. I thought that carried the best message in my observations of all of the different skits. They were all good. I enjoyed them all. I thought the hardest hitting of everything that I saw--I had to leave and didn't catch the last few, but the hardest hitting part of all of those skits was Darren's last statement. Who's next? How many of you remember that part of the skit? How many of you remember that? Do you? You didn't do a very good job, Darren. You made no impression on these people at all. I thought his performance should have gotten the Oscar. But as the enemy was leaving with that one that he had taken captive, he looked out over the congregation, if you'll remember, and reminded us that there was still some here that he felt he had a chance to get. Could it be you? How many of you as that message was coming forth to us, how many of you heard that message loud and clear? As you looked up on the platform and you watched the message that was being given, which household were you living in? How close to the world and how comfortable are you in that relationship? If our lives are to be holy to where there's no secular commitment whatsoever and our lives are to be offered up on a continuous basis as holy sacrifices to God, then what place is there for these things that wrestle from us, our pursuit of perfection?

Now we all know we're in the world. We talked about it this morning. You have to go to work and we said since we're going and it's one of God's methods that allow in our particular society since we no longer farm our own land. (You had to work then, too; it's just now we work away from our residence.) You go and there's provision, remuneration, for your work there's sufficient to sustain us but is that really enough? Having food and raiment are you content? Or does it have to be a certain kind of food with a certain brand? And a certain type of raiment and a certain style of raiment? You couldn't bear to be seen in the last fad's clothes, which today it would probably mean last week. I wonder if we all brought our clothes into this room if we could get in? How many of you think we could fill this building floor to ceiling with our clothes? How many of you think we could do that, to where we couldn't even get in here? I think we could. I think that's a good type of what I'm talking about. There'd be no room for us in here to worship, filled with our idols. Filled with things that aren't necessary, because with food and raiment let us be, say it? Content. Okay, there's nothing wrong with having more than one pair of pants, but are you content? Are you content in your godliness, which the Scripture says, is great gain? Are you content in what you're able to offer up to God or does your contentment come from everybody else's view of you? "How I look, how I'm stylin', where I am on the success meter." Presenting ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God which is our reasonable service. Anything that keeps us from offering ourselves up begins to be those idols or the cares and the weights and the sins that do so easily beset us. The little foxes that spoil the vine. All of those things.

Is your appetite; is your desire to be the best you can be for God tonight? If you could see yourself, your life right now and really see it, and this is what I'm trying to communicate to us in these couple of sessions. See yourself being offered up as that holy sacrifice, that sweet smelling savor to God and let me ask you? Do you smell as good as you should? Or would the verdict have to be, "He stinketh." We're all going to give an account, aren't we, for every idle word we speak for all of our deeds that are done, but even in that sometimes we can get caught up with ourselves. That's not the point whether we're going to receive some great position in the kingdom that's to come. The whole purpose of the sacrifice is to put worth upon our God.

The pagan sacrifices. What were the greatest sacrifices that could be given, do you all remember? What would it be? The children or a virgin, right? So those were valued; the rest of us old and worn out weren't worth much. But these that were pure, these that were innocent were the offerings that were to be given to their pagan gods. What about the offering of your life? How pure is it? How innocent is it? As we saw, Jesus said, this morning, "suffer the little children to come unto me...for of such is the kingdom of God." {Mark 10:14} I think it's important that this process of the renewed mind that Romans 12:2 talks about becomes a pursuit and not just something that periodically the Holy Spirit yells and we're able to hear that not so still small voice. What does it take for God to get your attention? Do you have to experience what David did? The pestilence. Does God have to bring us to that place where He says, "Okay, choose. I'm going to discipline you now, choose what do you want?" "Do you want to be out of work for seven years? Do you want to be under persecution and torment of the enemies of the cross? Do I need to bring some kind of a judgment on you and a discipline that will humble you and break you and cause you again to appreciate the things that you've taken for granted?" When we begin to look at ourselves and our lives are to be offered up to Him, are our hearts, hearts of thanksgiving? Or do we think that we should have more? Are we thankful for what we have? Not only material. I'm talking about in the community; people that love us, people that are here and pursuing and assisting us in this straight and narrow highway of holiness that we've chosen to walk. Or are you starting to look beyond these narrow boundaries and you're starting to really---"There's some people at work that I like, some secular people and, you know, we have some secular things in common and we both like the Redskins and we like potato skins, so we have things in common." Has there been a despising of the gifts that God's given you? Can you say that you're living a life that's in all things giving thanks? For that is the will of God concerning us in Christ Jesus. How thankful are you?

In direct correlation to our thanks to God, will be our worship of God, which is the presenting of ourselves to Him. The acknowledging of His lordship, the placing worth on Him so that we do His will and not mine, that we might prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. What would you say? How would you rate yourselves tonight on a scale of one to ten? And then let's ask another question, after you've given yourself a little bit of a rating, let me ask you, is it the highest you've ever been and you're pursuing and you're moving on? Or have you maybe backslidden? And if you have are you able to say, "Well, you know, it's just one of those times our lives all kind of go up and down." Or in realizing it, does it strike terror into your heart that you might be falling short of honoring the one that bought you with His precious blood? "Dear God, how could I be so thankless? How can I be anything but full of praise and worship and thanksgiving for the unspeakable gift?" You can get caught up in too many other things. The call of the prophet, I think, speaks loudly to us. Look over at Kings for just a second. I think there is a great parallel though none of us are probably being called into this capacity. But in I Kings 19 we find the prophet being pursued by Jezebel and he feels that he's the only one left, verse 10 says, "I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." And the Lord speaks to him in the still small voice of verse 12 and reminds him, verse 18, that there's "seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal." You're never alone in this pursuit. God has a remnant. There's a people that are honoring His name and don't you want to be a part of that? As he continues in his journey, verse 19 says, "he...found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him...and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him." Now most of us won't be called into this office of Prophet, but every one of us has had a mantle cast upon us.

Every one of us, the Scripture says, is called of God and ordained of God to go and to bear fruit. And our fruit's to remain and the Scripture makes it very clear that the whole purpose of Him pruning us that we might bear more fruit and much fruit is for what purpose? That God might be glorified. The call on every one of our lives. God called us, not for our sake, for His sake that we might bring glory and honor to Him. He's chosen us who are the least of the world that He might be glorified in us. He chose us because we were weak. He chose us because we were the uncomely. He knows that we're just earthen vessels that the glory and the Excellency might be of Him. But He has called you and He expects the multiplication of fruit in your life. And He expects us to daily be offering our lives as a living sacrifice and bearing more fruit, not less. Perfect fruit, not sour grapes, wild grapes. He will not allow the mingling of new wine and old wineskins. He will not mingle the different cloths together. He allows no mingling of seed and He's looking for a holy sacrifice in our lives. What did you do when that mantle fell on you?

I remember the call of God on my life to full time service and I remember the call on my life to the kingdom of God like it happened yesterday. February 5th, 1967 as Ernie Rodgers preached the Lordship of Jesus became a reality to me. I'd always had a belief in God. As a young boy at seven I heard about Jesus. At 17, I attended church for the second time. I was on every ten years; I didn't want to over do it. What a miserable life it is. I can still remember as a teenager laying down, after being out drunk and fighting, I can still remember laying down and thinking, "I'm going to hell, man!" And get up the next morning and go serve self again. There's no way you can break the power of sin. There's no way for a man to free himself from the lusts, the greed, the covetousness, the pride, the fear. Sin's power dominates men's lives until God's grace infuses faith into our hearts and we're able to believe the effectual work of the blood of Jesus and sin's power's broken. And finally our blinded eyes are opened and we see the worth of God and how poor of a savior in God we were. And we're humbled and we're broken and we're thankful. And at that moment as the song says, "The things of earth grow strangely dim." Everything's prioritized. You've all experienced it. I know in my own life, everything got rearranged. I've shared with you before in my testimony. Literally, the birds sang better, the grass was greener, I can still remember walking across that campus at Fresno State that next morning. No doubt that I was a new creature. Free from the power of sin. Oh, Lord, there still needed a lot of sanctification to take place, but I was free from the power of sin. God sought me I wasn't seeking Him. How can you ever devalue His worth that was made real to you that day? At that moment of the new birth all that I had worked for didn't have any value anymore. That, that I thought was ahead of fame and fortune had no value anymore. The family that I was a part of that we feel such strong ties to in the natural until we're truly regenerated had no power anymore had no worth anymore. Oh, I could love them and I could minister to them, but that was no longer where I identified. There was no more any feeling of obligation to them. I had an obligation to the kingdom of which I became a citizen. I had very strong patriotic tendencies and it was adjusted to its rightful place as a citizen of the kingdom of God.

How do you offer yourself to Him today? Where is the worth in your life? What are you worth to the kingdom of God? I remember statements being made. I remember my dad making a statement about me one time. He said, "He's not worth the powder to blow him up." So I have a question for you. What are you worth tonight to the kingdom of God? Do you think that because God loves you, that He attributes to you a worth that isn't real? Your worth is directly proportionate to the worth you put on Him. And everything else, the Scripture tells us, is dung. The rest of it is going to burn up. Are our lives holy sacrifices, nothing secular in it? And I explained that this morning. I'm not saying that you can't go to work. I'm not talking about you don't go to college. I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm talking about the fact that we realize that our citizenship is in heaven; that we are ambassadors to this world, we're in it but we're not of it. I am not pursuing my own purposes. I don't establish my own value system. God's word has already established that. I will not pervert it by loving my children more than God, by loving my spouse more than God, by loving myself. By being caught up with the cares of this world and loving houses and lands. The offering that we have to present to Him tonight, how much of it's polluted? How much mingled seed is there in your offering tonight? When you open your mouth and you say, "Lord I love you." What worth do those words carry through our obedience, through the fruit of Christ likeness in our lives? The cost of discipleship we all know is very clear. It's everything. It's death to self. And it has to happen on a continuous basis. It's the daily recognition. It's so easy to get off course. We're so easily distracted by the attractions of this world, all that it has to offer us. The devil is like those, what do they call them, infomercials? Slice it, dice it! And they'll sell you anything because the natural man is blinded by lust and pride, covetousness.

The mantle was tossed on your shoulders when God called you, and He ordained you to go and to bear fruit. It might be as a salesman, a clerk. You might be a plumber or an electrician, but that's just what you do, you're an ambassador of the kingdom. Now which one of those vocations is most precious to you? And is one subservient to the other? Because you can't serve two masters. Do you stand up on the job for the word of God, for the Lordship of Jesus, for righteousness? Is your life a testimony of integrity? Are you known as somebody who's different on the job? Oh, they don't have to like you, but do they know you're different? You see, when that mantle falls on us we're no longer our own, we're bought with a price. Now, you've been called and you've been called to be presented to God. The presentation to God, the worship, the offering of our lives to God makes us, then, those vessels that His glory flows through that we can be representatives. The Scripture says that when that mantle was thrown upon him "he left the oxen and ran after Elijah." He'd definitely been affected. He'd encountered God. He knew this was the man of God. He knew this was the anointing of God. He knew it was the call of God. Now I said, we're not going to be prophets, most of us in this room, but we're all called as ordained ministers to bring forth fruit. But he had an interesting response, didn't he? He said, {verse 20}"[Is it possible that I can go back] kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee." Is there any way that I can go back?

Jesus said, "Come and follow me." Matthew immediately followed Him. Andrew and Peter followed Him. James and John followed Him. I mean, they rode--You can read the passages, I won't bother to turn there, you can read the passages. It said, they rode in off of the lake, got out of the boat, left their boats and their nets and followed Him. I'm assuming they tied the boat up, but it didn't say that. I wonder what Zebedee was thinking? "Man, I got these nets to clean, these other boats, who's going to take care of these things? Where are you boys going? Where's your commitment to the family? How can you be so irresponsible? And Jesus turned and said, "That's right boys, you need to go back because you don't want to be irresponsible. This is Dad and you don't want to leave him hanging in the lurch here, and you go on back and get everything taken care of first. Let's worship Dad first. Let's worship the family first and then when it's convenient, come and follow me." Matthew 10 makes it very clear that all of those humanistic values that we place, and even all of those things that are natural that God has placed within us and even gives commandment to honor father and mother in the Lord, can be perverted. How holy is this offering of your life that you raise before Him every morning when you pray?

As he speaks to us in this particular passage, he hears the response of the prophet, and he just said unto him, "Go back again: for what have I done to thee?" "Can I go back?" "Of course you can go back. What have I done to you? Don't ask me for permission. I only know what I'm going to do," Elijah says. "You can do whatever you want." "And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him." What was it that took priority? He returned, but what took priority? It wasn't now just kissing Dad, was it? He went back and worshipped. It wasn't to finish plowing the field, for those oxen were offered up to God. He didn't go back to finish the job at the homestead, he went back and took that that used to be his idol and it was offered to God as he prepared to seek the glory of God and the call that was upon his life. And we went and ministered to Elijah, poured water upon his hands became the servant of the prophet. Where are we today in our worship, in answering the question, "What have I done to you?" James and John could have said, "Can't we go back and finish?" And Jesus would have answered the same way, "What have I done? Go back." They in fact did go back, right? Isn't the good think about God that He sought them again? Can't you imagine what went on in their hearts when they finally realized who that was on the shore cooking those fish? Not only were they not successful in their fishing, they weren't content anymore to do anything but be fishers of men. You can go whatever direction you want, but when God's put His hand on you you'll never be happy again outside of His presence and outside of His call. And you will never be totally content until you know that you're being offered up holy to the Lord and that your life is a sweet smelling savor. You will never be satisfied when you know you can be doing more.

The question tonight is, Romans 6 {verse 13}, are we yielding ourselves as instruments to unrighteousness? Or are we, Romans 12 {verse 1}, presenting our bodies living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God? "What have I done to you?" is the call to us tonight. Can you answer and say, "You've made me a new creature. You've given me a new family and a new citizenship. You've freed me from the power of sin. You've ordained me as an ambassador of God to bring forth fruit. I'm clear on my job and nothing is going to distract me." If you can, you're a sweet smelling savor in His nostrils tonight. Let's finish with Isaiah the first chapter. Everything else is religion and mundane. Verse 11 of the first chapter, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?" You see, a lot of people try to make up with quantity instead of quality. "Well, you know, I'm working all these jobs so I can give more money to God." He'd rather have holy money than profane. "I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats...who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?" {Verse 12} "You're not here because you want to be. You're here out of obligation. You're here because somebody's conned you or threatened you or put a guilt trip on you. Don't even come. Why bother?" This is the counsel that we were going to share with a number of people here in the last week. Don't even bother, man, just stay home. You're home in spirit; you might as well just keep your body there.

{Verse 13-15}, "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies..." Look what He says. Those were means of worship. Those were celebrations. Look what God says. "It is iniquity [sin], even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: you hands are full of blood." Not only the slain of the innocents, people that you're influencing, but blood of the offerings to the idols that you really worship. Verse 16, "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil." Look at the next phrase {verse 17}, "Learn to do well;" It doesn't just happen. You've got to be taught, you've got to be disciplined. You need instructors; you need people to tell you, "Do it this way. Here's what God says, here's the proven method. Follow those who have obtained." It's a process of learning. It's an instruction. It doesn't just happen. Discipleship is a process of instruction and willful obedience, choosing to do right even when you want to do something else. {Verse 17-20}, "Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, [properly treat] the fatherless, plead for the widow." All of that direction is to take your eyes off of yourself that God might be glorified. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be a scarlet, they shall be as white as snow," verse 18. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if you refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." We've seen what the profane offerings mean to Him. He's looking for a willing and obedient heart. He's looking for those that are students, who are disciples, you are willing to be taught and instructed and disciplined into righteousness, learning to do well. He's looking for those that are willing and obedient and says, "Ye shall eat the good of the land."

Father, we thank You for the Word of God and we ask that our lives might be sacrifices that are acceptable to You. Is every morning just the old grind, or is it the morning sacrifice? Do we begin our days recognizing the call to serving in Your kingdom? Oh, beloved, if you're caught in the grind and you're feeling just like the world, living for the weekend, living for self, living for that next idle moment or opportunity for recreation, then let me encourage you that there's a refreshing that can be had if you'll begin to say, "God's put me here, there's a people to reach, there's a life to be lived before them that confounds them. I am light. I am salt. I am an epistle being read. How much glory am I bringing to my God? Help us approach each day, Father, with that established in our hearts. Let our works be seen and let You be glorified in Jesus' name.

Amen. Let's stand before the Lord. As Gary plays for us and we just examine our own hearts. I asked the question this morning, "Did you come tonight prepared, refreshed, like you go to work?" Did you prepare for the meeting with God tonight, like you're going to prepare for that meeting tomorrow, the presentation you have, the contact, the deal, the responsibility? Did you come prepared? Is worshipping that serious? Is serving one another just a by-product? What's most important to you? I told someone the other day. They were distraught and I said, "You just need to get with God and don't get up until you've heard from Him." "Well, I can't do that I've got to go to work!" You take off work to go to the doctor. You take off work to go to the dentist. You leave work for jury duty. You leave work to go play golf. "You mean, take a day off to pray?" If you need it. Present your bodies holy, acceptable unto God. It speaks in the heavenlies. It gives you a reputation among principalities and powers. They'll know who you are. "Jesus we know and Paul we know, who are you?" Lord, that you'd be glorified. Lord, that is our hearts' desire. That we'd live unto you, die to self, that we would understand the vocation wherewith we've been called, to be examples of Jesus. Live it in us, Father, for the glory that's due Your name. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. Amen. Praise God. Before you go, turn to somebody next to you say, "It's your reasonable service."

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