Romans 12 Week 1

Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. What is true spirituality?

That is the topic we are going to talk about this morning. Jane Fonda (self professed Christian) …I needed to move back into the reverence of metaphor, the language of the soul. That is where I know my faith wants to reside. From time to time, there have been the awakened ones, conduits of perception, who, by fully embodying Spirit, have shown us the way—Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha, Allah, and others. Their messages have invariably been bare-bone-simple, remarkably similar and often embedded in metaphor, stories, and poems—all forms of art. Why? Because the non-linear, non-cerebral forms that are Art speak on a different frequency, they by-pass thinking, penetrate our defenses and jolt us open to consciousness. Over time, and, I feel, because I stepped outside of established religion, I was able to rekindle the spiritual experience that I’d been seeking. Some will say that because of all this I am not a true Christian. So be it. I feel like a Christian, I believe in the teachings of Jesus and try to practice them in my life. I have found Christians all over this country who feel as I do. They may not have been ‘saved’ yet they hum with divine spirit.

What are some popular ideas and definitions of spirituality? What are some ways that we try to identify spiritual people (Christians)? Answer and Discussion… Jesus had a discussion with some Pharisees who were struggling to understand spirituality as well. They viewed man’s relationship with God through the lens of the Law, so when they heard Jesus teaching like an expert, they asked him about what is the greatest commandment of the Law.

Matthew 22:36-39 - 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’

What were the two things Jesus focused on? Relationship to God and to Man.

God us a Spiritual Being and Spirituality begins with a relationship to God. That Relationship begins with Salvation. I remember when this happened in my life (Testimony) Other Testimonies?

Romans 5:8 tells us that God loved us so that "when we were in our sin Christ Jesus came to die for us." Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 10:9-10 "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."