All In! (Part 1)

Here we are at the start of a new year.  A new beginning.  What a great time to refocus our heart and mind.  Romans 12:1-2 says:

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to 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.”

All in.  That’s what God wants.  That what he requires – for you, for me, to be “all in”.  Not just on Sundays.  Not just a part of your life.  Not half-hearted.  All of it.  All in.  Sold out.  Using your life, every moment of it – no matter where you go, what you do, who you are – to bring honor and glory to him.  After all, your life is his anyway.

All in.  All in is your spiritual worship.  So often we separate the sacred and the secular.  Church from home.  Church from work. Church from family.  Church from the rest of life.  You can’t separate it.  We ARE the church.  That building you go to is just a meeting place.  The church is you.  The sacred and the secular cannot be separated.  So you’re either all in or you’re not.  Let’s stop sugarcoating it.  Let’s stop making excuses.  Let’s stop misleading people.  Let’s stop misleading ourselves.

All in.  That’s what God wants.  That’s what he requires.  How do we do that?  By God’s mercies and his renewing of our minds to make us more like his son and less like the world. We learn through his word how to live our lives all in.

Sometimes, well more than sometimes, I think we make “being Christian” too confusing.  We try to come up with a list of dos and don’ts.  We argue over things that don’t matter or at least focus on things that should not be our focus.  We judge each other.  We judge everyone.  Boy, do we like to judge.  If I’m on the outside looking in.  I don’t want what we have or want to know who we know.  We can be a pretty miserable lot.  God forgive us for representing you so poorly and take us back to the basics.  Forgive us for getting so filled up with theology that we lost sight of you completely.

All in.  I want to be all in.  I’m ready to jump.  I want to dive headfirst into waters so deep only Christ can get me through them.  Are you ready to take that plunge?  Let’s make 2015 our year to be all in.  Let’s learn together what that looks like.  Let’s remove anything from our lives that would prevent that and welcome things in that encourage it.

All in.  Are you ready?  Here we go!

Leave a comment if you’re ready to take the plunge with me!