🪹Self Sacrifice 🪺

We will never change the way we act until we let God change the way we think.

 Sacrifice- Destruction, surrender or loss made or incurred for gaining some object, or for obliging another; as the sacrifice of interest to pleasure, or of pleasure to interest.

Any thing destroyed.

Dedication, self-sacrificing devotion and loyalty

Romans 12:1 (KJV) I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

What you and I know about God’s Passion we should be more than willing to self-sacrifice. Be a living example of what God has done for us. It’s just reasonable. That would be  Dedicating Ourselves. 

Romans 12:2 (KJV) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Now we are not conforming to this world's standards because we are thinking differently. We have dedicated our minds to think more like Christ. The Apostle Paul said it this way.

Philippians 2:5 (KJV) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

The day God saved me I wanted to know more about Jesus and I began to dedicate my mind to doing so. What changed? Everything did, I wanted the mind of Christ and with the help of the Holy Spirit I began to change my way of thinking. My brother was at the hospital one night. His son was in the ER and he wanted to know how he was. He told me this. He said “I sat there and I asked myself what would daddy do?” He got up and did what he thought our Dad would do. That’s it, we as Christians should ask ourselves what would our Heavenly Father want us to do? That my friend is letting or allowing the mind of Christ in. Where will we find what Christ thinks? Good question. You see, my brother that night knew what our dad would do! How did he know? He knew because he had lived with him, watched him, spent time with him, listened to him, in other words my brother knew him because he had a relationship with him. We will never know the mind of Christ Jesus if we don’t spend time with Him in His Word, the Bible. Well I don’t understand it. That is a cheap answer, a lazy answer, get busy knowing who Jesus is. My dad had a rule, be home at 11:30 on weekends not 11:31 but 11:30 after that you were late. Now my friends couldn’t understand that but I did. It was a Wednesday night 16 October 1968 I had to be at the induction center in Atlanta early. It was the last night before I left for basic training. The night was getting late and 11:30 was getting closer and closer. I told my friends I needed to leave and get home before 11:30. They asked me to call my dad and tell him I would be home later. Sounds good to me so I did. What do you think he said? If you think he said ok you are wrong. He told me the rule still applied and for me to get home. You say your dad was hard. Yeah I thought so too back then but now that I’m grown I understand what he was doing. If he had let me get by being one minute late then it wouldn’t be long until I was 5 minutes late and so forth and so on. My dad was my hero. He taught me so much in a short time. He has been gone almost 39 years and there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about him. That is what my Heavenly Father wants. Never let it be a day that goes by that I don’t think about Him. You see LET this mind be in you!