Discipleship Letters 49-50

Discipleship Letter 49                                                August 23, 2009

“Offer yourselves to God…and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (Rom. 6:13, NIV).

Offer yourselves to God is the offering that God requires. Anything less than that falls short of his requirement. He doesn’t want us to serve Him without that first offering. It’s foundational to all other offerings. Then, Paul talks about “offer the parts of your body as instruments.” Instruments imply work. What it means is that who we are precedes what we do. As the hymn writer put it:

“What shall I give thee, master? Not just a part or half of my heart, I will give all to Thee.”

Our hearts come before our hands and feet. The course of our lives comes before the works of our hands. Many times we serve God with our hands and feet, but our hearts are far from Him. When He has no final say to the course of our lives, we stop being His followers. Offer yourselves to God is a radical demand on discipleship. Without this offering, what we do is pointless.

“But there is going to come a time of testing at the judgment day to see what kind of work each builder has done. Everyone’s work will be put through the fire to see whether or not it keeps its value” (1 Cor. 3:13, NLT).

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Discipleship Letter 50                                                Aug. 30, 2009

“For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving that saints, as you still do. And we desire earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end” (Heb. 6:10-11, ESV).

Each Christian should keep that earnestness till the end. We should be eager to serve the Lord with our strength, spiritual gifts, time, and money. I am thankful that God has gradually raised up more servants to serve Him through different ministry opportunities.

“To present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship…Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Rom. 12:1, 11, ESV).

First of all, Paul talks about “bodies as a living sacrifice.” We function differently at the church. We’re placed in different positions. However, we are one living sacrifice. God looks at us as an individual as well as a corporate body. Secondly, our service is an act of worship. To worship is to work; to work is to worship. In worship, there must be work to do; at work, there must be worship.