Offer a Continual Sacrifice of Praise!

Heb. 13:8--15
8  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  9 So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas. Your strength comes from God’s grace, not from rules about food, which don’t help those who follow them.
. . .
15  Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name.  16 And don’t forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God.

The Man, Jesus Christ, was the incarnate Christ-- God's only begotten Son. He was one with The Father, by his own testimony and by God's as well. He came to be a propitiation-- a sacrifice-- for our sins. He established the opportunity for believers to re-link to God the Creator. He came to proclaim peace over the war with sin and to give victory. He came to offer the opportunity for humankind to be re-made, over again, into the image of Christ who was in God. He was the creator at the beginning. At his death and resurrection He created again-- new life in all who would believe in Hm. He proclaimed the original gospel of God offered at creation to our first parents and there rejected. He succeeded where Adam failed. His news is Good News but is not new news. It was from the beginning, God's plan to create, even knowing His creatures would reject Him. He created a plan for our redemption as well, knowing the great sacrifice it would require. To us who are mortal, the sacrifice is unimaginable and can merely be represented by the religious imitations of animal sacrifice as recorded in the Old Testament with the Hebrews.

Jesus, who was God at the beginning, and who was God the Son at the crucifixion, and resurrection, and who is yet God today has never changed. He has never wavered from His plan and intent-- to produce a 'holy people' who would respond at all times in God's Holy Spirit power. We can draw strength-- more than we imagine-- from God because of His grace. Our religious rituals are meaningless but our redemption is true because our Redeemer is true. The only sacrifice that God wants from us is the sacrifice of obedience, the sacrifice of submission, the sacrifice of praising Him by electing His will in place of our own.

This day can be a great day for you because you embrace all to which the Lord, your God, is calling you. Today can be amazing because you embrace peace in His name and approach each task that comes before you in His unconditional love. I have prayed you find it in your heart to have a great day today in this way.
Dan
drdanelliott@gmail.com