“I urge you brethren (and sistren!)…” Romans 12:1
I memorized this chapter a few years ago and it keeps coming back to my mind and my heart lately so I decided maybe I should share it. I was also reinforced by Pastor Harold’s sermon this past Sabbath. It’s a great chapter that Chris Blake once called “The Other 27 Fundamental Beliefs.” Thank you Chris because that was what motivated me to learn this chapter. Thanks Pastor Harold for the motivation to return to it. Here’s how it starts and I’ll see how far I get this morning:
“I urge you therefore brethren, in view of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, wholly and pleasing to God which is your spiritual act of worship.”
- “I urge you”- There’s something urgent about getting things figured out on this spiritual journey. The world is not getting any better and the troubles in this world are getting very distracting from God’s ideal. I can’t fix the world without God as the focus and center point of it all. I just can’t get distracted from following Jesus and living like He lived.
- “In view of God’s mercy”- It’s NOT about me and my successes, even in the spiritual life; it’s all because of God’s great mercy. It’s that mercy that drives me to live like He wants me to live. It’s in response to that mercy that I choose to live like Jesus. And it’s because of that mercy that I have any hope. It’s my focus, my anchor, and the motivation to be like Him.
- “Present your bodies as living sacrifices, wholly and pleasing to God”- It’s interesting that after mercy comes sacrifice! God provides the mercy; God offered the ultimate Sacrifice; and now He asks me to make the decision to give myself to Him as my sacrifice. It’s no longer about what I want, it’s about what He wants, because I gave myself to Him.
- “Which is your spiritual act of worship”- Worship, at least in part, according to this verse, is the conscious act of giving myself to Him. Sometimes I’m guilty of going to worship to see what I can get out of it, when it appears that I ought to at least consider going into worship with the idea of consistently, regularly and faithfully giving myself to God. My act of worship is coming into His presence not so much asking Him to bless me and give me what I want, but more about coming to give myself again to Him as my sacrifice, BECAUSE of His great mercy to me to see what He wants for me more than what I want for me.
OK, I better quit! There’s just SO MUCH in God’s word when I give Him a chance to share it with me.
Have a great day “worshipping” God as your gift because of His gift,
Pastor Rich
Quote for the day: “It’s not about following the elephant or the donkey; it’s about following the Lamb.” Harold Alomia