Romans 12:1
“Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer you bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual act of worship.”
I have always loved this verse. To me it sums up what our Christian walk should be about. Paul puts what it means to be a Christian in a nutshell. The amazing thing about this verse is that it gives us a reason to live for Christ. In reality we shouldn’t need a reason to live for Christ. After all, He is the creator of the universe. The fact that He is the Lord of the universe should be enough of an incentive to serve Him. Just that He took the time to create us should prompt us to worship Him.
Paul implores us, “in view of God’s mercy”, to live as “living sacrifices”. In other words we should worship the Lord by living for Him because of the mercy He has shown us. We deserve to be separated from God because of our sin nature, but because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we can be saved from this separation.
At the end of this verse Paul reminds us why we were created when he says “this is your spiritual act of worship”. God created us so that He could be glorified. Paul tells us in Romans 12:1 that offering ourselves as living sacrifices is our spiritual act of worship.
As living sacrifices we are a new creation. Offering ourselves as living sacrifices means giving our lives over to the Lord and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us. The Lord requires us to worship Him because He is worthy of it. How can we worship Him more than to give out lives wholly over to Him?