Romans 12:1-2 (ESV)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:1-2 (Phillips NT)

With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.



Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

Have you thought about worship and what that means for you? Are you still hoping for some feeling, some moving experience, some affirmation that God is on your side and wants your fellowship? Are you still thinking of worship in terms of YOU? It’s not about YOU!

It’s about HIM and the proper worship is the laying of yourself, your life, your ambitions, your motives, your desires, your choices and your actions before HIM as an offering – a living sacrifice, as opposed to the Old Testament sacrifice which was put to death.

Since our Savior has been offered in death once for all for the sins of the world, we no longer face that prospect. However, we can lay our lives on the altar of God, as Isaac was placed on the altar by Abraham and was received by Abraham from the altar a living sacrifice. When he arose from the altar, I am sure that he arose a different person because of the experience.

Are your “eyes wide open” to all that Christ has done for you? Are you looking for a “reasonable” or “intelligent” way to respond to such lavish love, such selfless sacrifice, such deep devotion, such bountiful blessing?

Isaac Watts wrote in his famous hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross:

Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

“Embracing what God does for you” is not only “the best thing you can do for him”; it also drives you to offer all that you have to the one who gave his all, his best for you. That is true spiritual worship. And the feelings, the experience, the fellowship we seek will flow from that worship. I know this to be true: when I offer myself in selfless ministry, I find within myself the greatest satisfaction. Are you willing to “fix your attention on God?” Are you prepared to “readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it?” This is his plan for you: for your good, he wants to work in “your everyday, ordinary life” to bring “the best out of you” and to develop “well-formed maturity in you.”