Romans 12:1: 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.
He says to yield “your bodies,” your total personalities. The body is the instrument through which we express ourselves. The mind, the affections, the will, and the Holy Spirit can use the body. Vincent has assembled the following Scriptures which reveal this wide latitude. We are told to glorify God in our bodies. “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:20). “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death” (Phil. 1:20). “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. 4:10). By an act of the will we place our total personalities at the disposal of God. 1
Application
- Do you use your body as an instrument for His glory? Your hands to help, your voice to encourage, your heart to show compassion, your eyes to read His holy word, your mind to do His will…willingly and continually.
- Is your ability to sacrifice for others a measured and calculated response that works with your schedule, or is it at the mercies of the immediate needs of another?
Prayer
Lord, teach me to be a living sacrifice and not a selfish sacrifice.
1. McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (Romans 9-16) (electronic ed., Vol. 43). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.