Prelude to Building his church & kingdom

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

God’s majesty and glory blows you away when you stop &
think!
God made you who you are.
God knew you before you were born!
From before the creation of the world He knew you
and loved you and chose you for Himself.

We also know from first hand experience the curse of sin, there are the
days of sorrow when our tears have been our food day and night. ‘Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.’ Jesus came into the world to show us God’s mercy. Jesus came & died so we might live.

Life is no longer meaningless, we are never alone and the second death is not our eternal destiny. Having experienced God’s mercy Paul exhorts his readers, you and me to: Offer our body as a living sacrifice to our gracious God.
This is what we were made for.
This is what God designed us for!

By God’s mercy we are able to know how God created and designed us to live.
To live for Him! To live as He intended us to live. By His mercy He saves us to…

To live for Him.

Psalm 42

As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
These things I remember
    as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
    under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
    among the festive throng.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Saviour and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
    in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
    have swept over me.

By day the Lord directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Saviour and my God.