The trouble with Christians is that they have an insufficient idea of what God is asking of them.  How glibly we say, “Lord, I am willing for anything.”  Do you know that God is asking of you your very life?  There are cherished ideas, strong wills, precious relationships, much-loved activities that will have to go.

When the Galilean boy brought his bread to the Lord, what did the Lord do with it? He BROKE it.  God will always break what is offered to Him.  He breaks what He takes, but after breaking it He blesses and uses it to meet the needs of others.  After you give yourself to the Lord, He begins to break what was offered to Him.  Everything seems to go wrong, and you protest and find fault with the ways of God.

But to stay there is to be no more than a broken vessel – no good for the world because you have gone too far for the world to use, and no god for God either because you have not gone far enough for Him to use you.  You are out of step with the world and with God.  This is the tragedy of many a Christian.

Giving of ourselves to the Lord is an initial act.  Then, day by day, we must continue giving ourselves to Him, not finding fault with His use of me, but accepting with praise even what the flesh finds hard.

We consecrate ourselves to God to do His will wherever and whenever He in His wisdom may send us.  Whatever He ordains for us is sure to be the very best, for nothing but good can come to those who are wholly His.

There comes a time in many Christian lives that they begin to listen from the heart to the Word of God.  Not simply listening to gather information, or as a formality, but they listen with a view to obeying the Word.  And when they do, they become “freed from sin and become slaves to righteousness.  This is when we move from salvation to begin the process of sanctification.

-Excerpts taken from Sermon Central.

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