Romans 12:1
- “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable
service.”
Paul’s
admonition to the believers in Rome was to sacrifice themselves to God, not as
a sacrifice on the altar, as the Mosaic Law required the sacrifice of animals,
but as a living sacrifice. The dictionary defines sacrifice as “anything
consecrated and offered to God.” As believers, how do we consecrate and offer
ourselves to God as a living sacrifice?
Old Sacrifice
Under the
Old Covenant, God accepted the sacrifices of animals. But these were just a
foreshadowing of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Because of His
ultimate, once-for-all-time sacrifice on the cross, the Old Testament
sacrifices became obsolete and are no longer of any effect (Hebrews 9:11-12).
For those who are in Christ by virtue of saving faith, the only acceptable
worship is to offer ourselves completely to the Lord. Under God’s control, the
believer’s yet-unredeemed body can and must be yielded to Him as an instrument
of righteousness (Romans 6:12-13; 8:11-13). In view of the ultimate sacrifice
of Jesus for us, this is only “reasonable.”
Living Sacrifice
What does a
living sacrifice look like in the practical sense? The following verse (Romans
12:2) helps us to understand. We are a living sacrifice for God by not being
conformed to this world. The world is defined for us in 1 John 2:15-16 as the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. All that the
world has to offer can be reduced to these three things. The lust of the flesh
includes everything that appeals to our appetites and involves excessive
desires for food, drink, sex, and anything else that satisfies physical needs.
Lust of the eyes mostly involves materialism, coveting whatever we see that we
don’t have and envying those who have what we want. The pride of life is
defined by any ambition for that which puffs us up and puts us on the throne of
our own lives.
Avoid the lust to conform
How can
believers NOT be conformed to the world? By being “transformed by the renewing
of our minds.” We do this primarily through the power of God’s Word to
transform us. We need to hear (Romans 10:17), read (Revelation 1:3), study
(Acts 17:11), memorize (Psalm 119:9-11), and meditate on (Psalm 1:2-3)
Scripture. The Word of God, ministered in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, is the
only power on earth that can transform us from worldliness to true
spirituality. In fact, it is all we need to be made “.. perfect, throughly
furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:17, KJV). The result is that we
will be “able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and
perfect will” (Romans 12:2b). It is the will of God for every believer to be a
living sacrifice like Jesus Christ did.
Are you
living a life worthy for God’s sacrifice?
……….Amen!
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