Romans 12:1-2
1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Having explained in detail in the last 11 chapters, the amazingly wise, and meticulous plan of God, to give the entire world the opportunity to be saved, Paul now makes a humble request to his readers. He asks them (and us) to never forget (to always remember) how merciful God has been to us, when He worked out our salvation for us. He just explained how God has been merciful to both the Jews and the Gentiles alike, and now he reminds us to never forget God’s mercy on our lives.
He goes on to ask that we go beyond merely remembering God’s mercies to us, but to also present our bodies as living sacrifices to God. In fact, it’s only when we consider God’s mercies on our lives that we would want to respond to him in gratitude. When he uses the word, ‘bodies,’ he’s referring to the usage of all of our physical faculties. How we use every member of our body is important, seeing that we have been redeemed from our former sinful way of life. In Romans Chapter 6 he talked about using the members of our body as instruments of righteousness and not as instruments of unrighteousness. We need to use our eyes, ears, mouth, hands, legs and every other member of our body to love, worship and serve God.
When he uses the words, “living sacrifices,” He isn’t asking us to lay down our lives for God as dead sacrifices, as was the custom with all animal or bird sacrifices in the Old Testament. But he’s asking that we present our bodies as living sacrifices to God, where we live each day saying, “Yes,’ to the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and saying “No,” to being led by our sinful desires. We are to live our lives in grateful service to the Lord. We need to love the Lord with all we’ve got, and worship and serve him as long as we live.
Not only does Paul ask us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, but he also exhorts us to offer our bodies as holy sacrifices. The word, ‘holy,’ refers to both being set apart from, and being set apart to. We are to set apart our bodies from sinful ways of living, and instead set them apart to God where we reflect His character in the way we live our lives each day.
Thirdly, he encourages us to use our bodies in ways that are acceptable to God, which means that we use our bodies in ways that please God, and not in ways that displease or dishonour Him. If we use our bodies in ways that are pleasing to God, we can be sure that the world will not applaud us, because we don’t subscribe to their understanding of what bodies were meant for, but that doesn’t matter, because we are done living to please people, and we are now living to please God.
He goes on say that this is our reasonable service, implying that we are not doing God a favour if we choose to use our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to Him, but rather, it should be our natural response after all the Lord has done for us, when He saved us from our sinful ways of living, which would have resulted us going to a lost eternity. To put it differently, since God has been merciful to us, and saved us from the old sinful ways of using our bodies, it’s now time for us to offer up our bodies to God as living sacrifices, in ways that are holy and acceptable to Him in every way, and we need to consider this our reasonable response to God, as an act of worship and service.
Paul had just said at the end of Chapter 11, “In Him, through Him and to Him are all things…” He seems to be reiterating that everything we do, needs to be done as unto God, and not to please ourselves, or other people. We were saved by God, through His Son Jesus Christ, and we need to live our lives to worship and serve Him.
Paul then goes on to remind them again to not live according to the pattern of the world around them, since the ways of the world are so self-gratifying and also instantly gratifying. It is certainly tempting to live according to the pattern of the world, but it does not reflect the character of God in our lives. It would result in us getting back into the sinful ways we lived before we encountered Jesus.
Instead of being conformed to this world he encourages us to be transformed into a new way of life. When he talks about being transformed, he’s talking about being transformed into the image (character / nature) of God. The image of God that was marred in the Garden of Eden can be renewed in us all over again. Though we were forgiven of our sins, the process of transformation from our old way of life takes time, will and effort to happen. It’s only when we choose to obey God on a daily basis that this transformation eventually takes place. But praise God we don’t need to do this alone – we have His Holy Spirit indwelling us, and leading us into the new life of holiness.
But how does this transformation happen? He gets to the root cause of our thoughts, emotions, attitudes, words and actions – our minds. That’s where the battle is either lost or won. He encourages us to renew our minds, meaning that we are to use our minds in a new way, going forward – not the way we used to use our minds earlier. Earlier we used to gratify our sinful desires, but now we are called to live our lives, to glorify God, by loving Him, loving one another as believers, and loving those who are yet to come to faith in Christ. When our minds are renewed, our desires change, our thoughts change, our emotions change, our attitudes change, our words change, our actions change and our reactions change, and therefore our lifestyle itself changes. Since we’ve been made new, we need to now live out this new life, and if that’s to happen, it needs to start in our minds.
When we live our lives in this way, we will please God in every way, and will eventually develop the mind of Christ. When we have the mind of Christ, we will easily be able to understand what God’s will (desire or plan) for our lives is, and what’s not. What God wants for our lives, is always good for us, pleasing to us, and will always be a perfect fit for us. Very often we are so busy making plans, and trying to work out things for ourselves, without seeking the Lord’s leading in our lives, and then we wonder why they don’t have the desired results. The simple fact is that when we entrust our lives into the hands of the Lord, and are led by His Holy Spirit, and live in ways that are pleasing to Him, we will begin to understand what God desires, and eventually those desires will become our desires as well. When this happens, we will pray according to the will of God. We will then be able to say with the Psalmist, “Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)
Romans 12:3-8
3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
With the authority Paul received freely from God, he tells his readers to not think too highly of themselves, or conversely to not thinking low of others, but instead to look at themselves soberly. He’s in effect asking them to not have an inflated opinion of themselves. It is possible, and in fact an easy thing for us to compare ourselves with one another, and to either think highly of ourselves and low of others, or vice versa. But Paul reminds his readers that God has given each person a particular amount of faith. What Paul is referring to when he talks about a measure of faith that God gives us, is not saving faith to believe the Gospel, because that would mean we don’t have a choice of our own, and our coming to faith in Christ would depend entirely on the amount of faith God gave us. That would negate our freedom of choice or free-will completely. He is talking about serving faith (faith to serve God), which he will explain later.
Paul goes on to make an analogy between the human body and all believers in the body of Christ. Furthermore, he makes a comparison between the human body and with the spiritual gifts that God, through His Holy Spirit gives us, as believers. He says that just as the human body has many parts (members), and each has a very different and distinct function, so also we, though many members in the Body of Christ, are one. Though we are different from one another and very distinct individuals, we are all one in Christ. That’s something we should never forget – despite our differences, we are one in Christ.
He goes on to say that we are supposed to be inter-connected with one another. We were never meant to live in isolation from one another as believers, but rather to live as one united body, where we are inter-connected with one another. There’s never been a time in history when the world needed to see the Body of Christ united, as it needs to now. But sadly, we’ve never been more splintered by denominations, and other divisions amongst us than we are now, and this lack of unity is serving as one of the most powerful deterrents to people believing in Jesus today.
In John 17:20-21, Jesus prayed to His Father with these words, “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” We need to do all we can to live in unity with one another, and thereby to function as one Body of Christ. Jesus gave the reason for this as well – “that the world may believe that You sent Me.” So it seems that if the world is going to believe in Jesus, a major contributing factor is going to be our unity as the Body of Christ.
Paul then makes a connection between the human body and the spiritual gifts. We will now understand what he said earlier about God giving each of us a measure of faith. He says that since we have different gifts freely given by the Holy Spirit, we need to use them accordingly. If our gift is prophecy, we need to use it to the level of faith we possess. We are to speak only what we believe the Lord is asking us to say – not speak what we think or feel will be appealing to people. We also need to believe that the Lord will use this gift to bless people. If we have the gift of ministry (service), we need to serve with faith that God would use our service to be a blessing to people, and do only what the Lord leads us to do. We should avoid working in the flesh (based on our own ways of thinking). If we teach, we are to teach God’s word as it is, and not alter it to please our hearers or readers. We also need to believe that it will be a blessing to people, even if we don’t immediately see it’s evidence. If we have the gift of exhortation (encouragement) we need to use the gift to encourage people. If our gift is giving, we need to give liberally and cheerfully. If our gift is leadership, we need to lead with diligence; working hard as leaders, and not merely make others work - we also need to lead by example. If our gift is being merciful and kind to others, we need to do it gladly.
Paul seems to be saying that since God has been so merciful to us and saved us from sin and it’s penalty, we need to now use our bodies, minds, and all of ourselves, to reflect His image (character) in our lives. We also need to live in unity with one another, using our Spirit-given gifts to serve one another in faith and in love.
