“…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.” (Rom. 12:1).
WILL, It is easier to die once for God than to continuously live the surrendered life. But NOTHING IS SO PLEASING TO GOD AS OUR DAILY SURRENDER! Paul’s admonition to the believers in Rome was to sacrifice themselves to God, not as a sacrifice on the altar, but as A LIVING SACRIFICE. The dictionary defines sacrifice as “anything consecrated and offered to God.” As believers, how do we consecrate and offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice?
What does a living sacrifice look like in the practical sense? The following verse helps us to understand. We are a living sacrifice for God by NOT BEING conformed to this world.
“Do not conform (suschēmatizō: behaving according to socially acceptable standards) to the pattern of this world, but be transformed (metamorphoō: to change into another form, to transfigure, metamorphose comes from this word) by the renewing of your mind. That you may PROVE what God’s will is–His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom. 12:2). So, we do not just behave differently! OUR FORM IS CHANGED. For example, when I knelt to pray, severely addicted to alcohol, drugs and the lifestyle that goes with all that. I asked the Lord to deliver me (I did not know about sanctification then). The Lord preformed a metamorphose of my life, I did not just behave differently, I was transformed (sanctified), my desire for drugs – GONE!!! I truly became a BRAND–NEW CREATION in Jesus Christ my Lord.
Dear Lord, please sanctify each hearer of this word…
-Bill Stockham