As A Sacrifice

I exhort you.  If I am going to present my body as a sacrifice to the Lord, then what should I be doing?

Romans 12:1 – Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God—which is your reasonable service.

I have heard people say “don’t be so hard on yourself” to which I respond “you are not hard enough on yourself”.  How do you present yourself as holy?  Do you get holy by not doing anything?  No we are told to work out our salvation with awe and reverence.  This is not a works based salvation but works flowing from love because of God’s grace.

What about alive?  How did you become alive?  Did you raise yourself from the dead?  Spiritual death is a horrible place and now that I am alive in Christ I will never experience that death again.  Praise the Lord!

And pleasing to God.  Oh that my life will please Him.  Oh that my life will bring glory to His name.

And all this is just your reasonable service.  This is not extraordinary but reasonable.  It does not even feel like a sacrifice.  Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

I know but this morning, Romans 12 and Psalm 62 were just filling my mind with joy.  I want to expound on every verse.  Yes, I even emailed myself to do this if it is God’s will.