Good day, brethren! I have missed you all!!!! Between vacation before Christmas and company over the holidays and break, I have been completely out of pocket. So forgive me if I appeared to drop off of the planet!

I wanted to start the New Year with a verse my friend Terri gave me. I have been pondering it for the last few days, and have a ton to share. So, lets start with the verse, shall we? I think the Message version speaks volumes, so lets start with that!

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So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, developing well-formed maturity in you. Rom 12:1-2 (MSG)

The NIV uses the word "offer", or presented in other versions. Strong's defines this as:

1. to place beside or near  1). to set at hand a). to present b). to proffer c). to provide d). to place a person or thing at one's disposal e). to present a person for another to see and question f). to present or show g). to bring to, bring near h). metaph. i.e to bring into one's fellowship or intimacy 2). to present (show) by argument, to prove 2. to stand beside, stand by or near, to be at hand, be present 1). to stand by a). to stand beside one, a bystander b). to appear c). to be at hand, stand ready d). to stand by to help, to succour e). to be present f). to have come g). of time

So, all of these things, everything I do—eating, sleeping, working, playing, filing my nails, exercising, brushing my hair, taking care of my son, cleaning my house, cooking, washing dishes, doing the bills, spending money—every single thing—I need to place those activities near or beside my God. I find this noteworthy—I place it right there with Him, not BEFORE Him which to me implies almost a sign of reverant distance--reverance I can get with, but distance? No. I am to place my "offering" near or beside Him which, to me, implies intimacy--kind of like when my son, Jace, makes me a present or drawing and puts it right on my lap, or next to me when I’m sitting on the couch--not on the floor in front of me.

I am to present my "offering" for the Lord’s acceptance, to give it to Him, to provide Him my entire being and every activity from it to do what he will with it.

I am to present my "offering" to Him to see it, test and question it--make sure my intentions are right!

I am to present my "offering" as a sign of my intimate relationship with Him, to prove to Him I love Him by bringing to and doing everything for Him, to come near to Him with it (not leaving it on a table as a note, but bringing it to Him directly)

I am to present my "offering", to be ready for His will with what I am doing or to hear when I shouldn’t be doing something, to be ready to help, to be available for His will, to have taken time from my own wishes, and to have given that time to my God.