Jesus Christ loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful, helpless, and dependent. We may come with all our weaknesses, our folly, our sinfulness, and fall at His feet in penitence. It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love and to bind up our wounds, and to cleanse us from all impurity (Jeremiah 30:17).
We display sacrificial worship to the Lord when we deny ourselves and obey Him. We display sacrificial worship to the Lord when we choose faith in God over our desires and feelings. We must choose to have faith in God and His Word. To choose faith, we must have a better understanding of who God is. When we do not fully know God, it becomes much more difficult to choose His ways over our own. Faith comes from hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Therefore, we will not be able to choose faith over our feelings if we do not keep the Word of God in our hearts.
The warfare against the self is the greatest battle that has ever been fought. The yielding of self and surrendering all to the will of God requires a struggle; but the soul must submit to God, our obedience, our service, and allegiance of love, is the true sign of discipleship as well as our worship. The enemy tries to keep you ensnared in the natural realm as much as possible because he knows he can defeat you there! But the daily, holy, and living sacrifice of our spiritual service and devotion (Romans 12:1) to the Lord will keep our spirit, heart, and mind strong in faith.
If we abide in Christ, if the love of God dwells in us, our feelings, our thoughts, our purposes, our actions, will be in harmony with the will of God as expressed in the precept of God’s Word. “Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous”. (1 John 3:7, BSB).
