“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. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2 NASB1995)
Holy Sacrifices to God
As those who profess faith in Jesus Christ to be Lord and
Savior of our lives, our lives are to be surrendered to the Lord, to die to
sin, to do his will, and to obey his commands, by the grace of God, and in the
power of God, and because of what Jesus did for us on that cross. For in his
death he put our sins to death with him so that, by God-persuaded faith in him,
we might die with him to sin and now walk in holiness and in obedience to his
commands.
We are not born of God, and called God’s children, on a mere
profession of faith in Jesus Christ with our lips. For, by genuine faith in Jesus,
we are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and raised with him to walk in
newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but now as slaves
to God and to his righteousness. Sin must no longer be what we practice, for if
it is, we will not inherit eternal life with God. We must obey God with our
lives.
So if we present our bodies a living and holy sacrifice to
God, acceptable to God, what should that look like in all practicality in our
daily lives? Our lives should be, in truth, surrendered to the Lord, to doing
his will. Sin must no longer be our practice, but now holy living in walks of
obedience to our Lord’s commands should be our practice. We should go where the
Lord sends us, and do what he says to do, and say what he commands, all for his
glory.
So, this isn’t just about ceasing to live a sinful
lifestyle, and to live holy lives, pleasing to God, living morally pure,
upright, honest and faithful lives to God. This is about us giving up ownership
of our own lives and letting God have full ownership, and us following him in
whatever he has for us to do in this life, as his servants, messengers,
followers, and witnesses. It is following his calling upon our lives in doing
what he has planned for us.
And this is our spiritual service of worship of God.
Although singing songs of worship of God is part of worship, if our hearts are
right with God, singing songs of worship is not worship of God if we are still
the ones directing our own lives, and if we are doing whatever it is we want to
do without regard for what God wants us to do, and if sin is still what we
practice, and not obedience to our Lord and to his commands. Worship requires
obedience.
Not Conformed to The World
And we are no longer to be conformed to the pattern of this
sinful world. We are not to be doing and speaking and viewing and listening to
all the same garbage that the world has to offer us. We should not be feeding
our minds with the lusts of the flesh and of the eyes, and with the pride of life.
And our output shouldn’t look the same as what is coming from the world, but we
should be sharing the truth of the gospel and living what we preach, too.
So, we need to be discerning people. Many things should be
very obvious to us that we should not go down that path. Some things we may not
know about, but as soon as we see something going in the wrong direction, we
should back away from it, or close out of it, or whatever. For not everything
is obvious from a first glance. But from experience we should learn not to keep
repeating the same false steps, and should avoid some things entirely.
And if you are on the internet, I hope you understand what I
am saying. For a video might appear that looks interesting, and so you may
click on it. It may even start well, but then it changes. Things you should not
be viewing or listening to suddenly appear. And so you must immediately close
out of those videos. But there are people who keep going into the same types of
videos, and they know better. And curiosity leads them to destruction.
So, we must be very guarded about what we watch, what we
listen to, and what we feed our minds with. But just because we may listen to a
particular side of a political or a spiritual issue is not an indicator that we
are agreeing with what we are listening to. We learn by hearing what other
people are thinking and saying and believing about what is happening in this
world we live in, so we know how to pray, and what issues need to be addressed.
So, we need to seek God’s counsel and wisdom in this, not just
with regard to what all is okay to do or to say or to view, but as to how he
wants us to spend our free time when we don’t have other obligations to
fulfill, when we are just relaxing and taking it easy. For he wants our lives
to be under His control, not under the control of our own flesh and just what
we want. He wants our lives surrendered to him to now live for him and to do
his will.
[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John
6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1
Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32;
Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 12:1-2;
1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]
Surrendering All to Jesus
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