Romans 12:1-2;

These two verses sum up so much about Christianity.

 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform 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."

The first part of this passage is the most important. In this verse, the "therefore" is meant to draw in everything that Paul has been trying to get across since the beginning of the letter.
Which, in summary, is that we humans are all deserving of hell. Our sins are hate crimes against the throne of God. It is spitting in the face of our Creator. It is rejection of all things pleasurable and good, for twisted versions leading to pain. It is saying no to love and joy, for manipulation and pain. It is an attempt to defame God's glory, to say that He is not worthy to sit on the throne as the Holy Ruler.
Yet, God, in His mercy, sent His Son to die for His enemies, so that they may be saved. And this salvation that He has given us as a gift, cannot be earned, or else it is not a gift. If it can be earned, that means that God could be in debt to mankind, which is not true.

This is a very short summary, and I don't claim to have gotten the entire message across. So I encourage you to study it for yourself!

So, remembering all of this, let us look to God's mercy. In view of God's mercy, let offer ourselves as living sacrifices, Holy and pleasing to God, which is a spiritual act of worship.

Let's honestly take a look at God's mercy and grace, and what it means for us. When we do this, grace leaves no room for pride. Because it shows that everything we have ever done has killed us, and grace, which is a product of what we had no part in, comes in and erases our efforts and saves us from the wages of our efforts.
Grace kills our pride because pride tells us how great we are, and that we are capable of earning God's favor, but grace says no. That even our good acts are extensions of our pride and selfishness in that, we do "good" things just to earn a painless eternity.
Pride is the root of all of our sins. This idea that we have the "right" to do what we do. So if grace kills pride, that then enables us to sacrifice ourselves in an act of worship.
Reflecting on grace and mercy puts a right perspective in our minds of what and who we are. Which allows us to worship God in a holy and pleasing way.
Even our worship revolves around His grace!

Don't be conformed to the pattern of this world. In other words, be weird and don't fit in. Sure, you can participate and hang with the world. But don't live and act worldly! Just because the world lives one way does not mean that you have to live that way in order to relate. The way you relate to the world is that you both desperately need grace. But if you truly understand this grace, this grace will change you. It kills pride. We are supposed to live in such a radical and unnatural way that the word Paul uses to describe this difference in our lives is transform. It is a complete and total morph of our lives, starting with our very thoughts; the renewing of our minds.
And by this transformation, we are then given access to know what is the perfect will of God.

But it all starts with grace, and is all possible by grace.
We Christians are nothing, we are evil people being transformed by a Crazy Love.

Thanks for reading,

Dear Church

Please excuse me if I come across judgmental in this post; it is because I am writing from the perspective of those outside the church.

Dear church, I'm looking at you from the outside in, because the way you act doesn't convince me that I would be welcomed in. And all the times I came to you visiting I was pushed aside as you would formed you little cliques. Some of you said hello, that's cool, but that was the extent of our relationship. I had always been told to come as I was and Jesus would accept me, so I came with what I had on but your Christians rejected me.

Dear church, I am baffled at your claims, you say that you're a family, but I walk away and see old ladies gossiping. So all of my pains, struggles, past and sin that I came to you to get help with, I'll keep my mouth shut cause my sister who is looking for love, you called a slut. It's like you can't see anything outside the walls of your building. And it's killing us because we are just hurting people looking for love. You are too busy raising your hands and "worshipping" to put them down and pick up the man off the streets. You're like that priest or Levite walking down the road and see some guy who's been beat and left to die, bleedin out, veins about to run dry, but you say sorry, I don't have time.

Dear church, you come across invincible, and it's insane cause you expect us to be indestructible when we meet your Jesus but we've had enough of you. Because we aren't indestructible or invincible, but we feel extremely invisible. Because you claim to have the love and purpose that has us searching an thirsting but we can't have it unless we come to be churchy, but we go to churches unloved and feeling unworthy. We're hurting.

Dear church, how can you expect us to think you will accept us when we are filled with sins, hurts and fears; when you won't accept us in your buildings when we rock jeans, a t-shirt and Nike gear.

So dear church, don't expect to find us who are lost in your brick temples where we feel lost, cause we aren't accepted as gangstas and goths. And if some of us have been abused, used, raped, or molested, we won't tell you cause we reject your message. Cause your message is not what we expected. Cause we expected healing power but instead you have ruling powers, living wealthy building babel's tower. Tryin to teach us that Jesus receives us if we trade our life to a culture of preachers. But that's not me so I guess I won't see ya. And I'll continue to let my life be ruled by the lies of media. Because even though it's not good the things they teach us, at least we don't feel like hell bound heathens.

Respectfully,

The lost and dying of this world.

Thanks for reading.