I believe the greatest need of the church today is to apply the theology that she already knows. The earnest call of Paul for believers to present our “…bodies a living and holy sacrifice, (once and for all)…” is the practical application of the mercies which God has shown us – to make a decisive dedication of our bodies as a living sacrifice (cf. 1 Cor. 6:20), devoted and well-pleasing to God; not a dead sacrifice as those innocent animals whose throats were cut, but a living sacrifice that goes on living and serving for the rest of our days. It is interesting to know that the word ‘bodies’ is parallel with the word ‘mind’ in verse 2 of Romans 12, that is why Christianity does not call for a pulling all of ourselves away from the world, for a cloistering of ourselves from people, as in eastern asceticism, but Christianity calls for quite the opposite; it calls for a commitment of all of body, mind, spirit, our personalities, and all the functions that our physical bodies can do. And then after we have given those things, complete of ourselves in totality to God, then we are to go back into the world, and serve Him with those transformed and changed instrument of righteousness.

The body is not evil. It’s not nasty, it’s neutral. And the real key to our body is who it is that guides it. If it is the evil one, through the pull of our lower nature and the pleasures of the world that our physical body can become a great thing of evil, as all of us know it from time to time. But if we can yield ourselves to God in such a way that God’s Spirit in Jesus personally flows through us in our different gifts and uniqueness, and flows to the people around us, then our body can be a tremendous blessing to others. God calls His people to mount this new altar of sacrifice, and lay ourselves before Him – hands, feet, tongue, mind, sex organs, everything we are to be used for God’s glory. And i believe that’s possible to do.

#sacrifice