Present Your Bodies A Living Sacrifice

“I 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. 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.” (Romans 12:1-2 NKJV)

What is our reasonable service in Christ since we have been justified, sanctified, and shall be glorified? This beseech is exhorted to the regenerated Christians who by faith have been born again in Christ. Christians understand what the righteousness of God is and how they have been clothed with His righteousness. It means that man has nothing to boast of earning the righteousness of God. Natural born man is lost and fallen from heaven and thus enslaved in darkness and confusion under the power of sin and death. 

Christ’s death on the cross paid the ransom in full for those who believe in Him. The death of Jesus is the substitutionary death for all the elect before the creation of the world. Receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, we are liberated from the bondage and slavery of the principalities and dominion of the darkness and evil. Sin has no longer dominion over us for we are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14). The old man in us died to sin because he (old man) cannot keep the Law of God. 

The redemption plan for humanity was designed through the Christ of God even before the foundation of the universe. God sanctified and justified the elect in the name of the Lord Jesus to fulfill the scriptures. “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11 NKJV) 

Therefore, our reasonable service is present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God. It’s because we have been made alive by the mercies of God. God claimed us as His own property with the price of Christ’s death. We are not our own, but we were bought at the price. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NKJV)

As Christ presented His body as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to the Father on the cross, so do we. It means that we continue to cling unto the cross, denying ourselves and following the founder and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2, Luke 9:23). It means that we obey Him who draws us to present our body to fulfill His works like helping the needy, speaking kind and encouraging words to the saddened, explaining the truth, or witnessing the faith to the strangers and neighbors.

“And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (Romans 6:13 NKJV)

The next step, as given in the following verse, is not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing our mind. Thus, we may prove what good and acceptable and perfect will of God is (Romans 12:2). It’s because this world is contaminated and polluted by the deadly falsity and deception of the devil. Rather, we keep on being renewed our mind by the truth as presented all throughout the scriptures, especially the early part of Romans Chapter 1 through 11. Then, we are not left in darkness and confusion at all but shall be told what the perfect will of God is because the Inner Teacher who is the Spirit helps us out.