Romans 12:1-2
- I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of all the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies — presenting all your members and faculties — as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational and intelligent) service and spiritual worship.
- Do not be conformed to this world — this age, fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs. But be transformed (changed) by the entire renewal of your mind — by its new ideals and its new attitude — so that you may prove (for yourselves) what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect in His sight for you. Amp.
DEFINITIONS
Devoted -d) loyal, faithful; to apply oneself, time or energy to some purpose.
Faculties -d) any natural or specialized power of a living organism: as the faculty of hearing.
Sacrifice -d) an offering of the life of a person or animal, or of an object, in homage to a deity; a giving up.
When you hear an emotional sermon preached about being ready to die or not being ready to die, you are instructed to pray the sinner’s prayer with them, and you will go to heaven if you believe in the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. And yes, that is true. But in the Church, I attended the preacher always asked them to make a confession before the congregation that “Jesus Christ was the Lord of their Life.”
Of course, when you first get saved Jesus is not Lord of your life. We begin a journey that will make Him the Lord of our lives. Romans 12:1-2 is an important verse that teaches us what the Lord requires of each of us.
We must be serious in our everyday walk giving Him our bodies. We are no longer our own, but we belong to Him. We cannot keep doing things the same way. We are not to do what others do. We must spend time in prayer and seeking the Lord about what He desires from us.
If we become a living sacrifice that means we have to kill our desires on His altar and let them die. This means also our faculties, meaning our eyes, ears and mouth. It is very important what we look at, what we hear, what we say and what we eat. This also means our members which would mean where we go and what work we do.
If we do not give these things willingly to Him, we live and walk in disobedience. He is concerned with all that we are. He is shaping and molding us into a perfect vessel for Himself. We must be holy for He is holy. We are being changed in the process. And He says this is reasonable in His sight.
We must have renewed mind and not think the same or the way the world does. Now we have a Father who supplies all of our needs and is our healer. He is our rock and fortress and our protector. We do not need to depend on man or this world for help. All things have changed for the better and we need to change our thinking.
We can now be in God’s will for our lives. I believe we have to grow in God’s will for us. We begin in what is good in His sight for us. Then we grow to become acceptable in His sight. And at last, we grow to be able to perform His perfect will in our life. We know and see how loving and patient He is with us and knows that we need time to learn His ways.
If we ignore these two verses and keep living the same life after we are saved and just keep asking Him to forgive us, then we are not giving him our reasonable service and spiritual worship. If you do not serve Him, you are serving yourself or the gods of this world and that is not acceptable to Him (Jude 4).
11 Peter 1:3 For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that are requisite and suited to life and godliness, through the full, personal knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). Amp.
WENDA's WINDOW.com 