Day 8. Planned for God's Pleasure

Day 8. Planned for God’s Pleasure.

“Worship is a life-style!” I love the paraphrasing of Romans 12:1 by Eugene Peterson’s The Message: “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.”

Rick Warren points out that even cleaning the garage can be done for the glory of God. As Rosemary and I were walking through our garage yesterday to get in the car and on our way to church, she noted, “God’s still waiting for a little love.” What opportunities and nudges I have!

The great thing about worship as a life-style is that as we worship God, He touches us. Peterson again: “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.” Romans 12:2, The Message.

Grace, “You’ll be changed from the inside out… God brings out the best in you, develops well-formed maturity.”

What might a life-style look like? Not that complicated, not that rigorous. After all it is God who is at work in us. First, an attitude of gratitude. Deborah Norville in her book Thank You Power says she journals each day writing down a word or phrase that sums up three things for which she is thankful. Simple, and it leads us to be looking for things that we can note tomorrow, draws us closer to God, the giver of all good gifts, and our neighbor, often God’s messenger. Living a life of worship is finding ways each day to love God and neighbor and self just a little more. Be thankful.

And taking on the mind of Christ. Reading a chapter or two of the Gospels each day. With two chapters a day, one could read all four Gospels by Easter. With one chapter a day, we could absorb all of Matthew and Mark searching each day for the mind of Christ.
John Wesley called us onward to “Christian Perfection” (what I think Peterson means by "well-formed maturity"), loving God, loving neighbor, loving self, taking on the mind of Christ. Of course, we place ourselves in the arms of grace by reading, by praying, by giving thanks--by worshiping. It is grace that leads us home.

Grace,

Rick