Romans 12:1 states: I
appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
‘Present your bodies as a living sacrifice’… What
does this mean?
What are we doing when we are presenting our bodies as a living
sacrifice?
In seminary, my classmates and I discovered during a bible study that
knowing the Greek adds greater meaning for this passage: all of you (plural), each and every one of you,
offer/present your bodies as a (ONE) living sacrifice (singular). We
see that this commendation is made to the community of faith, telling us to
unite as one in our offerings and worship. The presentation of our bodies is
about our devotional offerings to the Lord. We are not to make burnt offerings
but to join together in our reverence for the Lord as an offering and
expression of our lives. Our sacrifice is to be Living in the sense that we can use all that we are
and all that we have (our time, treasure and talent) in our offerings joined
into one Living Sacrifice. Our worship and offering is a Sacrifice which means it is a sacred offering that truly
costs us something of our time, effort, and commitment in using our God-given
gifts as a thankoffering returned to the Lord in our worship of Him. We are to
remember that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and that we are to
spiritually join together as one spiritual household in our offerings. You can
see that this worship-filled activity of presenting our bodies needs to
occur daily, throughout our lives and therefore not just on a Sunday morning…
Finally, we need to remember that the only truly acceptable offering to God is
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. This means that we need to learn
how to join our efforts with each other and with the Lord’s One Offering as we present
our bodies as a living sacrifice.
~~~…~~~
1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought
with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1 Peter 2:4-5 Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by
men but in God's sight chosen and precious; 5 and like living
stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to
offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Here are a few other relevant passages:
Here are a few other relevant passages:
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Do you not know
that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God's temple, God will
destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are.
Hebrews
13:15 Through him then let us
continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God,
that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
Ps.
51 :17 The sacrifice
acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and
contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Here is the passage in its context: ROMANS 12:1-8
1 I
appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
2 Do
not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and
perfect. 3 For
by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more
highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according
to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.
4 For
as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same
function, 5
so we, though many, are one body in
Christ, and individually members one of another.
6 Having
gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if
prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if
service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; 8 he
who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who
gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
