Living a life of worship

School is officially started and I'm getting into the swing of things. It looks to be quite a busy term, however I'm looking forward to deepening my relationship with God through the scheduled nature of my life.

So to the topic of interest for this week...Living a life of worship.

Worship is not an activity that we restrict to church setting. Worship is a lifestyle, in addition to the time we set aside to focus on praising and giving thanks to God.

Worship-  To regard with ardent or adoring esteem or devotion;
                The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity.

Worship is soo much more that church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. To be true worshipers the bible says we must worship in spirit and in truth.

John 4:23-24
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Your spirit should be in constant communion with God(1 Thessalonians 5:17, Ephesians 6:18). Because we are new creatures in Christ and dead to the old man. Our new man is of the Spirit or constantly aware of the spirit. Which in turn means we should be constantly aware of God's presence in our lives on a second to second basis. There should(in a perfect world) never be a time when thoughts of God are not on you mind, In some way shape or form. We should be fascinated with the thought of him,  yet our minds are so trained on the flesh that we "forget" about him for the periods of time that we are not in Church or doing our devotions. And in those times that we "forget" about him, we forget who he made us, and who we are destined to become. We are Christians, Christ followers bearers of the holy name of God. When you bear someones name you are a representative of that family. We represent the body of Christ, our lives should be a reflection of Jesus' life.

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Offering your body... We carry our bodies around EVERYWHERE... using our bodies is not restricted to Church time. Wherever your body goes it should be glorifying God. NO EXCEPTIONS!! A living sacrifice.. Your spiritual ACT of worship. Worship is using ALL your time energy and resources to express our love for God. God extravagantly* expressed his love for you by sending Jesus... why not do the same for him.
John 14:15
" If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."
Romans 13:9-10
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
So by this we see that loving God is keeping the commandments of which the GREATEST is "Love your neighbor as yourself." I'm pretty sure we all love ourselves a great deal thus we should love other as least that much... In fact we should love them MORE because we should see people how God sees people, and if he love you Extravagantly, he love the next guy just as much.

In accordance to the word, this weeks endeavor is to make my lifestyle one of Worship.
By loving EXTRAVAGANTLY.
 * There is a whole different blog in this word right here... Check this out.. this is how God loves us.
Extravagantly
1.spending much more than is necessary or wise; wasteful:
2.excessively high:
3.exceeding the bounds of reason, as actions, demands, opinions, or passions.
4.going beyond what is deserved or justifiable
5.wandering beyond bounds
Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all.(2 Thessalonians 3:16)
-MiniMug 

OK, so with this Summer gone.. and yet another promise to keep myself on track falls by the wayside. I decided that I'm going to blog a couple times a week to track my progress. Sorta like an online journal I guess. I don't know who (if anyone) will read this.. But here goes...

First, let me introduce myself..
You can call me Mini-Mug...
i would define myself as your less than average Christian.
who takes advantage of God's amazing Grace on a moment to moment basis.
I'm constantly working on my self control and love.

So this spring and summer I believe that God has been working on my life in the area of commitment.
This is the question. How Committed I'm I to His Cause???

Now for the answer. I don't know. A quote from Jesus comes to mind.. "The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" Yup that would be the one. There are times when I just don't want to resist the devil anymore and I give in. OK, let me be completely honest here.. there are ALOT of times, sometimes I feel that I give in more then I resist. Yuck, God forgive me for being weak. I feel like I have to get my flesh under control before I move on with God. I'm the only thing standing in my way. I have so much more to descover about my God.

Job 26:14
Yet these are but [a small part of His doings] the outskirts of His ways or the mere fringes of His force, the faintest whisper of His voice! Who dares contemplate or who can understand the thunders of His full, magnificent power?

I've barely scrached the suface of the wonderful things God has in store for me. Yet I can't seem to get over myself. and you know I know where the problem is starting too. Its in my thoughts, I let myself think about ungodly things and then it just goes from there.. you know the saying you are what you eat.. well I've been feeding my mind the wrong things. I can see how just over the summer I've become rude and disrespectful to the people around me..

Luke 6:45
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

I haven't been planting the right things in my mind and heart, and I definatly havn't been pulling out the weeds. I see myself not keeping the garden that God gave me.. So for this week (and the rest of my life) I'm going to be planting the right things and weeding out the bad. I have dominon over my body and I will bring it under subjection.

Galatians 5:24 (Amplified Bible)
And those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and appetites and desires.

I will keep my thoughts under control. Thats all I got... So I leave with just a few more sriptures that come to mind.

Matthew 26:41
All of you must keep awake (give strict attention, be cautious and active) and watch and pray, that you may not come into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Job 29:14
I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban.