Romans 12: The Message paralleled with ESV

Romans 12

So here’s what I want you to do, 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. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. 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.

 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.

 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 

 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;  if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

 Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.  Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 

Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

 Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The Message and English Standard Version 

We are a Culture Consumed

As I was driving home this week, I started flipping through radio stations. I landed on a pop music station for about five seconds, and I was immediately overwhelmed. The lyrics coming from the radio were "the stars make love in the universe", "turn down for what", and "talk dirty to me". And my heart broke. We are a culture consumed by ourselves. We are consumed with sex. We are consumed with social media. And most of the time the three work together as we try to thrive in this world of instant gratification and materialism.

As I continued flipping stations, I heard a statistic that the average woman will spend one month of her life taking selfies and editing them to ensure perfection for social media. Now, I don't know how true that statistic is or where it came from, but I am sure that we are a culture consumed by ourselves and the image that we provide of ourselves on social media. We are consumed with different projects and causes on social media that we can "like" or create a hashtag for, but yet what purpose or whose purpose does that really serve? Do it really seek to serve the cause or does creating hashtags and liking pages and causes really just seek to serve ourselves by making us feel better that we have "done something".

Matthew West has a great song call "Do Something". The chorus says this:

"God, why don't You do something?"

He said, "I did, I created you"

If not us, then who
If not me and you
Right now, it's time for us to do something
If not now, then when
Will we see an end
To all this pain
It's not enough to do nothing
It's time for us to do something

Read more: Matthew West - Do Something Lyrics  

We need to stop hiding behind social media.We need to stop snap chatting pictures of silly faces and inanimate objects. We need to stop filtering every picture to make it perfect and spending countless amount of time creating a hashtags and instead start doing something. We need to get real with the Lord and we need to get real with people. We need to follow the teachings in Luke 10:27 to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself."We need to spend time with the Lord each and everyday and get to know people around us for who they really are and not what they tweet or instagram.  I need to stop writing and actually get out from behind my computer to spend real time with the Father and those people He has placed in my life. 

My prayer is that we may be a culture consumed by the wrath of God, so fearful of what the Lord can do that we run wholeheartedly towards him begging for mercy for this broken world of ours. My prayer is that we may be so radically consumed by Jesus that we are on fire for Him so that our "selfies" become pictures of Him in this world rather than pictures of ourselves. 

This holiday season is a wash....literally.

My mom and I decided to call this holiday season a wash and just start over next year. These past few weeks have been difficult to say the least for so many of my loved ones, and the holidays just didn't seem that merry this year. But as I started to think about this season being a wash, I realized that the holidays are a wash, literally.

We cannot celebrate the birth of this sweet baby we call, Jesus, without focusing on the reason that he was born and the reason he was sent to us. The great rescue story. The Father sent the Son for us. "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). He came to wash away our sins.

In the midst of all that is going on in my own life and in the lives of so many that I love during this holiday season, God reminds me of the reason for this season. He reminds me that His grace is constant. When I choose to lean on him and rely on him, He provides peace. He sent His son, the Prince of Peace, not to bring world peace, but to be peace on this earth (Luke 2:14). He is our peace during this time of trouble and uncertainty and struggle and fear.

Jesus was born to be our peace on this earth. And then, he died on the cross to wash away our sins. But he didn't leave us alone. The Father sent us a helper. John 14:26-27 says this, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,  whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

I am overwhelmed by the gentle reminder from the Father during this Christmas season of his love for his Children. He sent his son to be peace on this earth, to die on the cross to wash away our sins, and then sent a helper to continue to be our reminder and our peace until Jesus returns. So, regardless of the struggles that my family and loved ones are going through, we remember that "since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we rejoice in hope of the Glory of God. More than that we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:1-5).

Created for a Purpose

Over the course of the last few months, I have been attempting to complete a one word bible study of Proverbs 16:24 "Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." My intention was to ponder a word for a day and then write about it, but some of these words have taken me a long time to process what the Father was teaching me. The last word in this verse is "bones". I love the image I see when I think about this word, because I see "bones" as our structure, or the way that we are built.

 The Father began showing me more specifically how he formed his daughters by taking a bone from his son and making it into a woman. Genesis 2:22-23 says, "And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made (meaning built in Hebrew) into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.'"

I have the amazing opportunity to work to be in community with many wonderful women ranging in age from high school to college to young professionals, and I am consistently blown away with the Father's heart for His daughters and all of the desires that He places on our hearts as women. So much of these desires can be found in the story of creation.

In these verses and the verses leading up to the creation of woman, there is so much purpose in the Father's plan. First, He has Adam name "every living creature" and showing Adam that none of these living creatures are suitable as a helper for him. Then, the Father puts Adam to sleep and takes a rib (bone) from Adam to build a woman.Our Father in heaven created us, His daughters. He formed us and structured us perfectly. I am constantly talking to women about our struggles to find our purpose and searching for our identities, but the Father has shown us our purpose all along. He has built each one of us. He has created in us a desire to be loved by Him. He is continuously pursuing our hearts and our purpose and identity are to be found in Him. We are daughters of the King.

But he also created another structure when he created women. He created the relationship structure between Man, Woman, and Himself. In Genesis 2:18, God says" It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper fit four him." God tells Adam that it is not good for him to be alone, and after God created woman, He woke Adam up. God brings Eve to Adam, and he realizes that this living creature is "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh." Adam realizes that Eve is to be his helper and in Genesis 2:24 it says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh." God creates the structure of relationship between Man and Women.

So ladies, we must remember that we are created for a purpose and our identity is in Him. Remember that the Father pursues our hearts constantly and that we are worthy of a man who will pursue us and who will lead us.

Remember that we are called to be a helper. We are called to be a companion. We are also called into community with others. God doesn't want us to be alone, but I think the Father calls us to use gracious words in our friendships and our relationships. They are sweet to the soul and healing to the bones that he has used to build us.We should love each other and build each other up rather than break each other down. In the age of social media and constant pressure from the world to be perfect and look perfect and find your identity in how you look and what you wear and what you do and where you live, we must remember that we are made for community and we are called to be there for each other. We should hold each other accountable to finding our identity in the Father and listening when He pursues our hearts.

Ladies, we are also called to be helpers for our brothers in Christ. We are called to hold them accountable and look to them for leadership. As daughters of the King, we are called to support and love each other in all of our relationships and friendships. My prayer is that we would always remember our purpose and our identity and that the Father will get the glory in all of our relationships and all of our friendships.

Healing for the Broken

"Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." ~Proverbs 16:24

      I decided to skip around in my one word bible study, because I was burdened today with the word healing. I don't think we can discuss the word healing without discussing the brokenness that needs healing. Today, especially, is a day when the brokenness of the world is so overwhelming when we remember the tragedy of 12 years ago and how the world will forever be affected by that fateful day. If you are old enough to remember that day, you most certainly will never forget where you were and what you doing when you heard the news of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania. Brokenness flooded a city, a nation, and the world in one fell swoop as shock and anger followed close behind.
      I was also overwhelmed, today, with the brokenness of so many of my students and all of the teenagers and young adults that I have the privilege of knowing. The exposure and demands in the world of teenagers today is unbelievable. They are precious, sweet sons and daughters of the King just struggling to find their identities in so many things and being pressured from every direction imaginable.
     Healing seems almost impossible in this broken world and these broken lives. But the world has been broken, these lives have been broken. Since The Fall. But God. I will say it again. But God. He had a plan. He had a plan for healing. He sent his son. To die on a cross. For our sins. For our brokenness. He is our redeemer. He is our superhero. He is our healer. Always.Matthew 4:23 says: " And he went throughout all of Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people."
       Jesus rescued us from this broken world, and he calls us to LOVE one another. Gracious words are healing to the bones. We are to act out of love in every circumstance. We are to respond in love in every situation. I love the way that 1 Peter 4: 8 from the Message explains it. "Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything." We are called to love each other. Our lives and the lives of others depend on it.

-I am not

It is well, with my soul

I have been thinking about the word "soul" for a little over a month now. Soul is defined as the very essence of our being. We sing about it, we talk about it. But the concept of my soul has been so huge that is too much to contemplate on my own, and slowly the Lord has been revealing this concept to me, bit by bit. Often my soul feels so restless in this world, and I think that is exactly how the Father wants us to feel. We are not meant to be of this world. This is not our home. My soul yearns for union the Father. And while I feel restless sometimes and often so far away from God, He uses so many gentle reminders for me to seek after him always. It is good for my soul when I do. He provides so many opportunities to see him in our everyday monotony. He allows us to step outside of time when we are with him. He quiets our minds, so that our hearts and souls can spend time with him.

I love the picture that Brett Younker gives in his song, "Burning in my soul".The lyrics are: "Whoa hear the sound from Heaven. Whoa, a mighty rushing wind. Whoa, we're calling for revival. God let your fire fall again. It's burning in my soul. I cannot contain it, this fire inside. I cannot contain it, so let it shine. I cannot contain it, this fire of mine. It's burning in my soul."

This image is so perfect for the way my soul feels restless in this world. My soul is yearning for time with the Father, and the Spirit living inside of me is burning to shine through me in this broken world. My soul, in communion with the Lord is on Fire for him and wanting so badly to put aside the things of this world and just be with him. My soul longs for revival in this world and for the day that Jesus returns. I find myself yearning more and more for this day that sometimes it is a struggle to remind myself that the Lord has placed me here for a reason in this time and this place for His purpose.

But He reminds me to constantly seek after him. I love the picture in the hymn, "It is well, with my soul." This is by far, my favorite hymn. Regardless of what is going on in our lives, it is well with my soul. Because we know the truth. We know our purpose is to love our Father and to live for our Father and the things of this world are only temporary.

The Message version of 1 Corinthians 7:17 says this: "And don't be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God's place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there."

My prayer is that my soul will seek after the Lord constantly to live and obey and love and believe wherever the Lord has me in the present. I pray that no matter what the circumstances I can always say, It is well, with my soul. And I pray that the fire inside of me will always be too much for me to contain that the Holy Spirit is constantly shining through me.

-I am not

the three the's in my life

"Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." ~Proverbs 16:24

I have been slacking in my one word bible study, but really it is because I am a little stuck on "the". This word has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now as I have tried to find both the time to think and the time to write. "The" is such a simple word used to identify much of the things present in our daily lives. But I find that I get so wrapped up in the things that I have placed as priority in my life that I could spend many paragraphs discussing all of the things I do to try and serve the Lord. I am completely a Martha and need to learn how to be more of a Mary (see Luke 10:38-42).  But through all of the doing, I forget to spend time focusing on the three most important things: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. So here is to a restful Sunday evening and spending time with the three "the's" in my life.

-I am not