“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true and proper worship.” - Romans 12:1

As we kick off the new year, we are going to spend the next week or so looking at what it looks like for us to live out our Christianity. Romans 12-16 gives us such a great picture of what that looks like, and it all begins in Romans 12:1, which says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true and proper worship.”

Offer our bodies as a living sacrifice? What does that even mean? This is so contrary to the world we live in today. Society wants us to feel empowered to do what we want. Society tells us that this is our body, and we can do what ever we want with it. But that is not what God commands us in Scripture. See, if you are a believer, your body is not yours; it is God’s, and it belongs to Him.

God wants you to honor Him by making your body a living sacrifice. This means dying to to the natural desires of humanity and pursuing His perfect will and purpose for your life. The verse says “as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” When we offer our body as a living sacrifice, we are rejecting the earthly desires that so many will encourage us to partake in. Instead, we are staying holy, keeping our bodies pure, so that they are pleasing to God.

If you choose to give your body to Christ as a living sacrifice, I will warn you; you will be ridiculed. This is a very unpopular choice that most people, even believers, fail to do. But there is a reason it is the very first verse of this chapter. The importance of it cannot be overstated. When you give your body as a living sacrifice to God, you are choosing God over yourself. And God will honor that decision. It is something that will pay positive dividends in every area of your life. It might be unpopular in society, but God will bless you for it!