The art of passionate sacrifice.

This month marks the 7th year of my blogging journey. I remember the day when I wrote my introductory post in the beginning of September 2009. I was filled with enthusiasm and a strong desire to share with others what God was doing in my life. About a year before that, my life changed dramatically through a series of events that led me to a completely different perspective on life than I’ve ever experienced before. God is capable of changing us in ways that we never could change ourselves and He delights in making the crooked straight, bringing life out of death, and changing the course of our future. Looking back, I realize how faithful God has been in leading me closer and closer to His heart and there is a certain theme that I find again and again as the years go by. It’s like a hidden echo that resonates in the midst of life’s tumult and it is a call to live a life of sacrifice, excellence, and abandonment. In all my posts, I have tried to display the beauty of God’s desire for us to find the beauty and fulfillment of a life lived in complete surrender. This life is not for those that are happy with the mediocrity of modern Christianity but it is rather a life lived under the lordship of God’s Spirit. I have found that it is so easy to know that God expects of us and even to write and speak about the beauty of a life fully lived for Him but to fail to give ourselves to portraying it through our lives. God has not just called me to write about His glorious kingdom- He actually wants me to first be a picture of the principles that govern it. He has taught me about the blessedness of living sacrificially and giving my very best to Him. Through His Word, God constantly calls us to a life of commitment, diligence, and passion. He is rarely found by those that are careless about finding Him but always found by those that put their every effort into pursuing an intimate relationship with Him by making Him the sole focus of their existence. God is calling us to not just write, or talk, or even preach about Him but to be like Him and to allow Him to have full access to our lives. We are called to a life of passionate surrender to God on a daily basis by taking the time to pull away from the world and to spend time with Him. Many of us desire to live a life of excellence- one that will speak centuries after we die, but so few of us will live passionately for God today. What will your relationship with God be like 7 years from now?