By Brooke Momblow
Today let's practice meditating on a passage of scripture using some reflection tools.
Surrender this time to God.
Discern what you need today.
Ask God for what you need.
Read the scripture passage as directed below.
Respond to God based on what you are hearing.
Romans 12:1-3 NLT
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 the 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. Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.
Romans 12:1-3 MSG
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are.
Read
Read the passage aloud. Then go back through and circle words, thoughts, phrases that jump out at you.
Think
Choose a theme that speaks to you - perhaps the idea that God is the real source of goodness in your life or perhaps the contrast Paul makes between what your culture draws out in you and what God draws out in you. What does this passage say about the theme you chose?
Pray
Pick one phrase from the passage that pinpoints the theme that impacts you. Repeat that phrase to yourself slowly several times. Each time you say it, notice your internal response: thoughts, memories, feelings… What does it stir up?
Now bring these thoughts back to the passage, line by line, in a conversation with God. He speaks through the words in the passage, then you respond to what he said. When you’re finished, repeat the phrase to yourself one last time, checking your inner reaction. Is it different? Don’t worry if this process leaves unanswered questions. Just be open to what God might be showing you through the meditation.
Live
Consider one of the four “everyday, ordinary” parts of your life suggested in the passage: sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around. What would placing this activity before God as an offering look like? How would you think about this activity differently? Would the frequency, method or other details of your activity change? Try it today.
Material taken from SOLO – An Uncommon Devotional by Eugene Peterson
...and what we do for him. Let's Crown Jesus as King in the details of our lives.
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