LIVING SACRIFICE
Opening Prayer
Lord, use your Word today to command me and comfort me. I need your direction as well as your consolation.
Scripture Reference
ROMANS 12:1-8
Read
A Living Sacrifice
12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Humble Service in the Body of Christ
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Footnotes
- Romans 12:6 Or the
- Romans 12:8 Or to provide for others
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
Consider
‘Take my life, and let it be / consecrated, Lord, to thee.’1 Consciously bring each aspect of your living today to God.
Think Further
‘Therefore’, writes Paul. This word often marks a moment of transition in his writing. He has been explaining the gospel to a diverse church made up of Jewish and Gentile believers. It was hard for some Jewish Christians to accept that the coming of Christ had superseded the old ways of reliance on Old Testament Law and Temple worship. It was hard for some Gentile believers not to feel a kind of superiority because they were accepted without those regulations. Now, Paul moves on to the nitty-gritty of living out the implications of what he’s been teaching.
You thought you knew about proper worship? Yes, it is no longer about correctly offering dead animals, but it is about offering the whole of your lives – the daily living sacrifice of everything you are – body, mind, and spirit. Paul shifts our view from our time-bound cultural awareness and moves our understanding toward God’s perspective on how we are to live as his people: ‘be transformed’ (v 2). Now, we are ‘in Christ’ (v 5); this fundamental new reality underlies and makes possible the authentic outworking of our faith.
So, in verses 4–8 Paul begins to raise the question of what it means – with all our individual differences – to be the body of Christ. The discussion may bring to mind Paul’s similar teaching to the Corinthians.2 Here, there is less emphasis on the gifts we might think of as supernatural and more focus on everyday giftings, such as encouragement and showing mercy (v 8). It is not a question of being better than someone else (v 3). Our gifts need to be received thankfully and used purposively for the good of the whole ‘body’ (vs 4,5). We have different gifts, but living as the body, together, we are enabled to live out our ‘true and proper worship (v 1).
Apply
What gifts and abilities have God given you? Deliberately offer these to God now.
Closing Prayer
Patient Father, I am not what I was, nor am I as I ought to be. Continue to make me and mold me in your image I pray.
1 Frances Ridley Havergal, 1836–79 2 1 Cor 12
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Last Updated on August 20, 2022 by kingstar
