Being the Feet: Living Worship

[This post originally appeared on my NTM blog.]

“Free [believers] respond with worship in everything.  It is a natural outpouring of thankfulness and awareness of love and grace and truth.  It isn’t mustered up; it flows out.

“We breathe in air and breathe out worship.  We receive love and extend worship.  We embrace children, offering worship.  We comfort, we laugh, we mourn, we dance, we read, we dream, we exist – all worship.  We pay the bills, we run on the treadmill, we enjoy a good movie, we make dinner, we welcome friends with open arms – worship, all worship.  We send money and offer prayer and sit with a lonely neighbor, in Jesus’ name.  We wait for love, we long for home, we pour out our hearts and hopes and fears and longing; we create with words and photos and colors and food, all beautiful acts of worship.

“But we don’t call it that.

“We call those things living.  But when the Spirit of the living God lives inside of you, then your living is also your worship.  What else would it be?  ‘Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.’ (Romans 12:1)

“Worship and service are the result of knowing the truth about our new identity in Christ.  Contrary to what the critics might say, understanding our new identity as believers is not a passive teaching focused on self.  It is the very path by which Jesus is able show up in our lives.

“But trusting Jesus in this way can’t simply be a declaration of what I believe to be true.  It has to have hands and feet.  Sometimes my faith has to risk getting dirty and being ordinary.  That simply happens in the everyday, living-life things.  The mystery of Christ in you can be so easily overlooked because at first it doesn’t look mysterious.”

(Emily P. Freeman in Grace for the Good Girl)

Today, Jesus is not asking you to be a hero.

Today, He wants you to be His hands and feet. To first reach out to those around you, and then to reach out even further – all with His love. Who knows? You might touch a life all the way across the world.

For stories from others who are being the feet, you can visit NTM’s news page.