Place Your Life Before God

I've always said that the last portion of Romans in The Message translation is my favorite. I was reading it again late last night and the first verse hit me... again.

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life-- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and waling-around life--place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him." Romans 12:1

Why do I find it so hard to place my everyday, ordinary life before God. I place the big speaking events... the ministry projects... the Master's class... you know, the stuff I need him for.

I guess it goes back to what Edwin Ennis said at our retreat a few years ago, "Pursuing and living in a life anointing and not just a ministry anointing."

God wants our lives not our efforts. He wants what we do to be a response to his love for us. It's so easy to get the cart before the horse as it were. I have to continually remind myself that I am deeply loved by God and I serve him not so I can receive his merit, grace, and love... but because I already have.