Angela Thomas - A Beautiful Offering: Returning Gods Love with Your Life

A Beautiful Offering

Other Books from Angela Thomas

When Wallflowers Dance

Do You Think Im Beautiful?

Do You Think Im Beautiful? Bible Study and Journal

Tender Mercy for a Mothers Soul

Prayers for the Mother to Be

An Expectant Mothers Journal

Prayers for New Mothers

A Beautiful Offering

Returning Gods Love with Your Life

ANGELA THOMAS

NASHVILLE DALLAS MEXICO CITY RIO DE JANEIRO BEIJING

2004 Angela Thomas

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.

Scripture quotations noted The Message are from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked PHILLIPS are from J. B. Phillips: THE NEW TESTAMENT IN MODERN ENGLISH, Revised Edition. J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Pass It On lyrics (on page 8) by Kurt Kaiser. 1969 Bud John Songs, Inc. (ASCAP). All rights administered by EMI CMG Publishing. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

ISBN 978-0-7852-8826-8 (trade paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thomas, Angela, 1962
A beautiful offering : returning God's love with your life / Angela Thomas.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7852-6357-9 (hardcover)
1. Christian womenReligious life. 2. Beatitudes. I. Title.
BV4527.T467 2004
248.8'43dc22 2004001713

Printed in the United States of America

08 09 10 11 12 QW 8 7 6 5 4

For
Novie Thomas,
with all my love.

Mama, maybe more than anyone Ive ever known,
your life is a beautiful offering to God.

Contents

WHEN YOU ARE

MY LAST BOOK, DO YOU THINK IM BEAUTIFUL?, CAME FROM my hearts desire to know the personal and passionate love of God. More than anything, I longed to hear what God had to say of me. I wanted to know if He saw all of me and loved me still. The answer I heard came like a shout from heaven, when God said to me and to you, The King is enthralled with your beauty.

Both my heart and mind have been overwhelmed by the truth and power of Gods intimate, pursuing, rescuing love. And from that gratefulness the question to God that builds in my soul is, How can I return Your love with my life? I truly want my life, these very short years, to become a sweet offering to my Father, the One who invited a girl like me to dance in His arms.

I want to know how my life, this imperfect journey with blemishes and scars, can reflect back to God my gratefulness for His love to me. And so, I have turned to Jesus for instruction. Show me how to live a life that is beautiful to God. Teach me what Hecalls pleasing and blessed. I want to work my way through Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and return to Him a passionate pursuit. I want to know what this woman will look like as these truths continue to take deeper hold of me, transforming my heart and life.

It is a privilege to have you come with me. Well begin with Jesus words called the Beatitudes. For so many years, I have heard the Beatitudes taught as a list of Gotta Bes. It seemed as if I always came up short when I stood my life next to the Gotta Bes. I could never seem to reconcile the perceived call to mourning, meekness, and persecution with the rest of Scriptures call to joy, boldness, and strength. It seemed as though the Beatitudes were preached like you gotta be all of those things at once. I couldnt figure out how in the world I could be poor and mourning and meek, hungry and merciful and pure, peaceful and persecuted, all in the same woman, all at the same time.

Because of Gods new mercy to me, I have loosely begun to call this listing the When You Ares. That when you are poor in spirit, the kingdom of heaven can still be very close. That when you are meek, there is even then a spiritual inheritance. That when you are merciful, there is more mercy given. We have to stay true to the intent of Jesus, and I believe that in this part of the sermon, He intends for us to learn to respond like Him through these blessings. Some of the blessings come to us when we find ourselves in certain circumstances like poverty of spirit or persecution. And then sometimes the blessing comes because we are becoming spiritually mature as with the pure in heart and the peacemakers.

The kingdom of heaven is the promise that bookends the When You Ares. Essentially Jesus wants us to learn to live in a way that reflects the kingdom of God to the world, to live as a woman with a kingdom heart. I truly want to be that woman. And Jesus says that when you are, its beautiful and blessed.

I guess I always thought that my offering to God had to be perfect and without any flaw, something like a perfect sacrifice. I am coming to understand that the Father receives the offering of my life, even when it is broken or weak or marred. Its the covering of Christ that makes it perfect, and the desire to give my life to God that makes it beautiful.

The more I walk with God, the more I come to know Him as a mystery. Maturing is a journey. We know only in part and usually learn in little lessons. My prayer is that the stories in these chapters will be lessons that inspire your faith and challenge you to move closer and closer to God. May you hear the voice of God call you beautiful. And may you desire with all your heart to return the love of God with your life.

BROKEN

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

The LORDis close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL IN NORTH CAROLINA DREAMING about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I chose the most radical, adventurous, outside-my-box, scare-my-parents-silly thing I could think of. My mom was a nurse and my dad sold produce. I was their firstborn, and I decided that I wanted to be an astronaut. Of course no one took me seriously for a while, which made me all the more determined.