“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen. 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. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.”
- Romans 11:33-12:2 (NIV)

It’s interesting to think about all the times I doubt God. Too often I spend time worrying about what needs to happen next in my life to notice what God’s laying out before me. It is because of God’s mercy and sovereignty that we can lay down our lives in worship to Him. Without His eternal plan, we would never be able to have a relationship with Him. God is and must be in control of all things, and everything is as it should be. You won’t ever see God scratching His head, wondering what in the world we’re doing. It will all work out, and I need to trust Him more. He’s never let me down, and He never will. And that’s why we worship – because we can trust God to take care of everything.

Church today was awesome. We’re studying Hebrews 11, and the “Hall of Faith” where the writer of Hebrews lists out all of these awesome examples of faith and what faith is. Today Ronnie focused on verse 4: “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” (New American Standard). In comparing the offerings of Cain and Abel (the first two brothers, found in Genesis 4), my pastor observed that while the objects offered in sacrifice were both acceptable (God accepted both grain offerings and blood offerings), the attitudes of Cain and Abel were quite different. Sin can’t simply be covered up in works and stuff, but blood must be paid; Cain recognized this, yet chose to offer a grain offering instead. My pastor put it this way: Abel said “I’m going to give God what He wants”, and Cain said “God ought to want what I’m going to give Him.”

It was pretty awesome. Another thing my pastor challenged us with today was at the beginning of the sermon. As he was giving a short synopsis of Hebrews 11, he asked us: Would there be anything in our lives to serve as a testimony so that we could say “By faith…[insert your name]” when we are introduced? That really challenged me; I want to life a life of faith so that when people talk about me, they would talk about what God’s been doing in my life.