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To me, one of my favorite aspects of volunteering with the youth students at church is watching them mature.

When the sixth graders start in our class, they seem so…well…there’s really not another way to put it…immature.

But as they grow and develop, usually by the time they are in high school, they seem different somehow. The initiate more serious conversations. And it just hits me all of a sudden – this student has really matured.

I’m not sure we ever fully “mature” on this earth. I may be able to “adult” with the best of them, but I still have some really immature attitudes and actions pop up.

James 1:2-4 says “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

Look at those verses in reverse order. Our end goal is to become mature. Maturity comes through endurance. Okay – that makes sense. But endurance comes from trials – and that’s something we all do our best to avoid!

Since we live in a sinful, fallen world, difficult situations and days are certain to come. But how we face them directly determines how we mature. As you face your next trial, do your best to shift your way of thinking about it to match James – view it as an opportunity to rely on God in a new way and grow in maturity.

Romans 12:1 tells us to present our bodies as a “living sacrifice.” Now that’s a great example of an oxymoron! An oxymoron is a grammar term where two completely opposite terms are brought together in one phrase.

My favorite example of an oxymoron is “jumbo shrimp.” Some other great examples are “deafening silence,” “alone together,” and “found missing.”

Enough of that grammar rabbit trail. Back to “living sacrifice.” A sacrifice requires a killing. So how do we have a “living sacrifice?”

An excerpt from Elisabeth Eliott’s book, Through the Gates of Splendor gives us some thoughts on the subject. She tells us that Jim “limited his extracurricular activities, fearing that he might become occupied in nonessentials and miss the essentials of life…he did, however, go out for wrestling…[explaining] … I wrestle solely for the strength and co-ordination of muscle tone that the body receives while working out, with the ultimate end that of presenting a more useful body as a living sacrifice.”

As Christians, we are to have this same radical mindset. No matter what we do – even if it’s wrestling – we do it to glorify God.

We use our bodies to better serve Him. We take care of it so that it will be ready to obey whatever He calls us to do.

Being a “living sacrifice” is a difficult way to live life. It’s completely against the selfish culture that we live in. But it’s the life that God has called us to live. We can know with confidence that He will equip and guide us along the way.

Steven Curtis Chapman released his album Signs of Life in September of 1996. I was 8 years old and firmly believed that there was no greater Christian song writer or performer than SCC. My family and I went to the Signs of Life tour. While wearing my brand new, black suede SCC baseball cap, I sang along with every song he played.

Even now, I’ve decided to play that album on Spotify to help recreate the memory. The first song? Lord of the Dance. Does it get much better than

I am the heart, I need the heartbeat
I am the eyes, I need the sight
I realize that I am just a body
I need the life
I move my feet, I go through the motions
But who’ll give purpose to chance
I am the dancer
I need the Lord of the dance

I regress.

I was 8 and at the SCC concert with my family. Steven was addressing the crowd and sang a lyric with the word “you” and pointed to the crowd. My mom looked at me excitedly and said, “He pointed at you!”

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