Romans 12:1-8 - We Give Our Lives to God

Romans 12:1-8

Living Sacrifices to God

1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Serve God with Spiritual Gifts

3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

We Give Our Lives to God as if nailed to the cross with Jesus and are now dead to ourselves (Galatians 2:20) as we worship Him.  We should be lying still on the altar to give up our own goals in life as we pursue holiness, serving Him as we ought to by design and calling.  This is the only logical and reasonable response to the immeasurable grace and forgiveness of God’s mercy shown undeserving sinners such as you and I.  If we then willingly submit to God through death to ourselves and our desires each day (Romans 8:13, 1 Corinthians 15:31, Colossians 3:5) then we will find God’s work of sanctification transforming us as a metamorphosis of the mind he soul in us.  This leads to changed behavior and desires (Psalm 37:4) to align with God’s design for us as good and acceptable in His will.  We become God-pleasers (Galatians 1:10, 1 Thessalonians 2:4) against the bent of our natural fallen nature to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and His example according to the word of God written for our instruction to make us what we ought to be and serve Him as our eyes are opened to clearly see.  This work of God in us should never lead to pride as we are warned here but to humbly sit in awe of God’s transformative work in us as we submit in self-sacrifice to do His will and lay down our own to daily nail to the cross along with the requirements of the Law to earn His favor (Colossians 2:13-14) as our own efforts tend to pull us towards.  Sacrifices on the altar should willingly lie still to avoid being tied down against our will to die to self and find resurrection of the spirit now and the whole person with the body on the final day.  This also means that we are set free from sin from this death and new life within to serve Him reasonably in using the gifts and calling we have been entrusted with.  Like a body, the church universal is made up of various parts with unique functions which are all necessary and important; we should not compare ours with another’s (2 Corinthians 10:12, 17) but by grace use these for the good of each other and the body under Christ as a whole.  Whether we prophesy by revealing the meaning of God’s word taught or preached, whether we encourage and challenge others to follow and imitate Christ in us, whether we give out of a heart moved to see the needs and meet them, whether we diligently lead as put in positions in the local church, or whether we cheerfully use gifts of mercy to willingly and cheerfully meet the needs of others, in all these things we are living sacrificially by putting the desires of our Lord and the needs of His people in place of our own pursuits of living.  We give out lives first to God and then to others (2 Corinthians 8:5) as we are all called to do.  We have been crucified to death on the cross with Christ and now live as sacrifices whom willingly lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:16) as we willingly obey and are transformed to live the same way as Jesus and the apostles before us.  We Give Our Lives to God in sacrifice and service to follow Him truly.