After Easter Will You Follow Through?

As we prepare to celebrate another Passover, many people enter into this season of Lent with good intentions.  They give up so many things for 30 or 40 days or however long suits them.  From the time I was a young Christian I could never understand why people made a big deal of it and I still don't.  I never said it but I always thought, "Doesn't God derserve your sacrifice everyday & not just during Lent?"  If whatever your 'fasting' from or giving up bothers you that much, shouldn't you give it up altogether?  God wants your attention all year, not just during this season.

How sad it has become that we make this one time a year such a big issue when sacrificing our entire lives all year long should be such a big issue.  But I guess no one sees it.  I often think about this issue whenever I listen to "The Altar & The Door" written by Casting Crowns own Mark Hall.

"Carless, I am reckless, I'm  a wrong-way-travelin-slowly-unraveling shell of a man.  Burnt out, I'm so numb now.  That the fire's just an ember way down in the corner of my cold, cold heart.

Lord, this time I'll make it right, here at the alter I lay my life.  Your kingdom come but my will was done, my heart is broken as I cry.  Like so many times before, but my eyes are dry before I leave the floor, oh Lord I try.  But this time Jesus how can I be sure I will not lose my follow through between the Altar & the door. 

Here at the altar, oh my world so black & white.  How could I ever falter what you've shown me to be right....?"

Strong words that cut so deep to the very soul or they should at least.  Especially if you are living your life as a daily sacrifice to Him.  Maybe next time when I think about how hard I try to sacrifice daily as I see others just casually for once a year coast by for 30 or 40 days, I'll get up the courage to ask them, "After Easter, will you follow through?"

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you:  Take your ordinary everyday 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, develops well-formed maturity in you."  Romans 12:1-2 (The Message Bible)