Unlimited: A Living Sacrifice
Jun 29, 2023 446
to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1b).
This is a radical statement from the apostle Paul, and demonstrates how far he has already travelled in his thinking from his Jewish origins. The Jewish people, like other societies at the time, offered animals, food and drink, to God in their temple. But now, Paul urges us to offer our very selves to God. This is not the sacrifice in the temple, or in church; this is the sacrifice of the everyday.
This is what God had always required, as he said through the prophet Hosea:
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings (Hos. 6:6, quoted by Jesus in Matt. 9:13.)
This is not the sacrifice in the temple, or in church; this is the sacrifice of the everyday.
This isn’t ritual worship or one day a week worship. It isn’t worship that is set apart from our everyday duties and activities. It truly is the worship of the whole of our daily lives. It is true spiritual worship. That is the sacrifice that God requires.
Jesus had foreshadowed this in his discussion with the woman from Samaria, when he told her that because he had come into the world, true worship was no longer tied to physical places, times, and rituals, but is instead “in the Spirit and in truth”:
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth (John 4:23–24).
Spiritual Application
Reflect on your daily activities. What is the most ordinary, mundane thing you do every day? What is the most secular environment you find yourself in daily? How can you turn this into an act of worship?
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