I Have the Right...

Maybe it's just me who has this problem, but have you ever started to get into the mode where you have "rights"? I have the right to this and that because I'm a...(human being, child of God, etc.)

But we don't have the right to demand anything from either God or man.

Romans 12:1-3
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith."

I Corinthians 6:19-20
"Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

I Corinthians 10:31
"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

First of all, we are to be "living sacrifices" to God - our whole lives are offered up to Him (or should be) - because it is our reasonable service. Secondly, we are not our own.

The whole Bible is full of that: we have been bought by Jesus' blood, we are created by God, we are slaves either to sin or to God. That leaves us no room for bargaining and whining and demanding.

And the most important of all...we are alive on this earth to bring glory to God.

What does this mean?? Well, it means a lot of things (which I'm not going to go into right now since this isn't a book or anything - feel free to read Jon Piper's Don't Waste Your Life, it's an amazing book), but what I am focusing on today is the fact that it means nothing I do should be directly for me.

So I wander downstairs and start complaining about breakfast (or lack thereof...), and this brings absolutely no glory to God whatsoever. We are His representatives in this world.

"Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven."

Back to square one =/