Romans 12:1-2 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Yesterday, we had a guest pastor at our morning worship service. Bro. Lonnie O’quin brought the message from Romans 12:1-2. Bro. Lonnie is well known in our town. He is a retired pastor who shepherded the flock at a local church for almost forty years. Though retired, Bro. Lonnie is still a great man of God, and he is still on fire for the gospel. He spoke about the problem with many Christians choosing to compartmentalize Christ. It is a hard pill to swallow at first, but I have to admit that I have been guilty of this myself in the past. To compartmentalize means to divide into sections. Many are guilty of doing this in their faith walk. We put our Christianity in a nice, tidy little compartment, and we store it away and only pull it out once a week or when it is really needed. Unfortunately, the drawer pulls on that compartment are sometimes shinier than all of the other compartments of our lives. Peeps, that isn’t how God intended us to live.
This is a mindset of primarily a Sunday morning worshipper. Many times, Christians feel that they must go to church on Sunday. It could be due to a feeling of obligation, or hopefully, it is the calling of the Holy Spirit, but sometimes after that Sunday morning worship is over, it becomes business as usual. We think we need to act or live a certain way on Sunday because, well, Sunday is God’s day, right? So we give Him that day. He is safely tucked away in that compartment, and we pull Him out on Sundays. We serve Him for one day of the week. Then comes Monday. On Monday, we get back into the routine of serving ourselves. We work long hours. We take care of business. We do what needs to be done, but we forget to include the Lord. We forget to talk to Him and read his Word everyday. We forget to share the pits and the praises of the day with our heavenly Father. We live the way we want to live. We do what we want to do. We do all of this without a thought of our salvation. But then comes Sunday, and we give that day to the Lord again, because, well, Sunday is God’s day. We open that compartment up, but we only open it for the day.
I’m not pointing fingers at anyone. If I did, I would have four fingers pointing right back at me. I too have been guilty of compartmentalizing my Christianity in the past. The problem with this is that Jesus didn’t call us to be Christians part of the time. No, my friends, He called us to follow Him ALL the time. We can’t fill up our tanks with the Word of God on Sunday mornings and expect that tank to stay full all week. Our tanks will run on empty within just a day or two. Scripture tells us that followers of Christ will be recognized by our love for the Lord, our love for others, and the fruit that we are bearing. If we spend six out of seven days ignoring the Lord, I can guarantee you that we won’t be producing any fruits of the Spirit. And we sure won’t be showing love to or for the Lord in doing so.
Paul shares with us in the book of Romans that we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to the Lord…the kind that He will find acceptable. I’m pretty sure playing church on Sunday and living outside of His will the rest of the week is not what He would find acceptable. We can’t live like the rest of the world lives. We can’t follow the current cultural trends. We must stay true to our Savior. We must stay true to the Word of God. The only way that we can do this is to stay in the Word of God. We must have a true around the clock, real life, heart to heart relationship with the Savior. He’s not a genie in a bottle that we can call out when we need Him. Our Lord wants to be part of our daily lives. He loves us completely. He loves the good, the bad, and the ugly. He took our sins on that day on that cross. He loves us so very much. He does not belong in a compartment!
This week I challenge you to live out loud for Christ. Don’t store Him away in a compartment until next Sunday. Keep His Word close. Meditate scripture. Pray. Talk to our Lord daily, maybe even hourly. Live out loud for Christ! You won’t regret it for a moment.
Inspirations from the Funny Farm 