“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.” Romans 12:1
When we think of Praise and Worship our minds automatically go to singing. Or at least mine does. But Paul is telling us here that our acts of spiritual worship are simply living for him every day.
Paul starts this verse with “I appeal to you therefore”. I’ve heard it put this way when you see a therefore, you need to ask yourself what is it there for. So I backed up to the previous chapter to see what was happening. When you see therefore it is building on, or an answer to what has happened in the scriptures before. In chapter 11 Paul was talking about how the Gentiles (that’s us) have been grafted in. Make no mistake ever the Israelites are God’s chosen people. But when Jesus died on the cross, He made a way for all of us to be children of God. This is what Paul had addressed in Chapter 11. So this is what the first verse of chapter 12 is saying.
“Therefore” because Jesus made a way for us Gentiles. And Paul emphasizes this point with “by the mercies of God”. He made a way for us because He had mercy on us, because He loved us. Because of all He has done for us, we should live for Him. That’s what Paul means by “present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” We know that before Jesus the people had to bring animals to the priest. I’ve heard it said that man would have to actually place their hand on the animal as the life left that animal to know the depth of the sacrifice for His sin. Praise Jesus we do not have to do that anymore. Jesus has already been the sacrificial lamb for us. So what we can do is be a living sacrifice for Him.
Being a living sacrifice for Him simply put, means to just live for Him every day. Do your best to be “holy and acceptable” to Him. This doesn’t mean to be perfect. There is no way to attain that. But we can strive to be holy, we can strive to be acceptable. We can strive to live for Him daily.
I love the simplistic way this verse reads in The Message.
“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.” Romans 12:1 (MSG)
Well when it’s put that way, it sounds so simple for my simple mind! All we have to do is come to Him daily, ask for His help to walk out this everyday, ordinary life, knowing what He’s done for us already, and asking Him to guide us through each and every day!
And that my friends is our spiritual worship to Him!
Restore 