“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. 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.” Romans 12:1-2
Paul instructed the Romans how to dedicate their lives as living sacrifices to God. Christ made a way for us to accomplish closeness with God and forgiveness for our sins that was impossible before He descended from Heaven. His life, death, and resurrection broke the curse, which blocks us from the presence of God. In Christ, we are led into an intimate relationship with God, who in His great mercy sent His one and only Son to die for us while we were still sinners. Out of gratitude, we cannot fully express how we can truly dedicate our daily lives to honor and bring glory to God.
As Christians, we must live to serve God constantly. Not to be shaped to look like the world, the Christian’s mind is to be renewed in order to appreciate the importance and benefits of God’s will as revealed in His Word. God’s mercy rains down upon us when we embrace Jesus Christ as our Savior. We must die to ourselves in order to live for Him. His love and forgiveness flow through us when we follow Him. This is the picture of a living sacrifice. Our lives worship God before we even lift a hand in the air to sing His praise when we live each day as a living sacrifice. We do this by ensuring we are right with God, through Christ, and in our response to God. Christian life has everything to do with being merciful to people and that it has everything to do with being worshipful toward God.
“And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” Hebrews 13:16
Our true intention is to reflect the peace of Christ in our heart, and to believe the truths God says about us, over the lies of the world. Our enemy and the cursed sin world we live in is deceitful. When we are in Christ, God’s love flows through our lives. Our behavior reflects the fact we know the difference between self-love and a living sacrifice. Christ died so we would live our lives to the full. When we believe condemning lies, it’s impossible to live fully for God.
Christ gave himself for us, and we are to respond by giving ourselves to him. We give ourselves in serving him. A living sacrifice means believing who God says we are and what He has promised for us. This is where our confidence comes from, and our lives will shed. God’s presence and mercy when we embrace our confidence in Him. Paul called for a renewal of our minds, and Scripture reminds us to make our thoughts captive. Spiritual means ‘rational,’ ‘reasonable,’ that which is carefully thought out. Constantly and consistently, in prayer and God’s Word, our minds develop a godly wisdom and perspective that allows us to see His hand on our lives and His love to extend through us and onto others.
Throughout our lives, through the process of sanctification, we are being made holy …like Christ. “Involvement of the heart, mind, will and life- the whole of what creatures such as human beings are and do. It is a lifetime that we choose to drop our agenda, refuse to believe lies about who we are not, and embrace the full life we have in Christ to walk out God’s agenda for us in His Kingdom.
This is what it means to be a living sacrifice. To understand who Jesus is, what He sacrificed for us, and what that means for us now and onto eternity. Our hope, here on earth and eternally, is in Him.
The call to be a living sacrifice is a difficult process, but life within the love of Christ overflows with the peace and joy of abiding in and obeying our Father in Heaven. Every day is purposed to bring glory to God. “No improvement can be made upon the will of God. When we understand what it means to worship God as living sacrifices, we get to embrace the fullness of His will for our lives.
WHOSOEVER WILL WORSHIP MINISTRIES
Assistant: Pastor Wesley Fulton
www.wwwmjesus.net
429 Bayou Rd, La Marque, Tx.77568
Need prayer Ch. Ph: 409/933-9878/Need prayer
