And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. (Romans 12:1)
Read: 2 Chronicles 24:1-25:28, Romans 12:1-21, Psalm 22:19-31, Proverbs 20:8-10
Relate: There are not many TV shows that I regularly keep up with. While I had all kind of time on my hands back in the States I was re-watching the old Star Trek DS9 series. Now that I have returned home I can pretty much guarantee my watching of that is dead in the water. Here I will do my best to get in one sports game a week (Yankees or Real Madrid) and I will watch Flash and Arrow. That’s it. I don’t need to give you 13 Reasons Why I won’t be watching the Walking Dead, Orange is the New Black, Game of Thrones or other such nonsense. I only need one. I only have time to watch the best.
In case you haven’t seen Arrow, I will give you the early premise for the show. A father and son were on a pleasure yacht that sank and are now on a life raft together. There is only enough food and water for one of them to survive. The father gives his son a book of names of people who are destroying their home city, then kills himself so that his son can live. The son, after supposedly living for five years on a stranded island, returns home where he dedicates the rest of his life to fulfilling his father’s mission of “saving his city”. The father sacrificed his life for his son. Then the son becomes a living sacrifice to honor his father.
React: Honestly, I feel like I could just end this post here, play a worship song and close in prayer. The illustration is so obvious does it really need further explanation. Paul has shared in Romans all that God has done for us. Now, as he begins to wrap up his letter, he says our response to this is that we should offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him. Like Oliver Queen, every aspect of our lives should be built around honoring our Father by fulfilling the mission He left for us. Are we about doing that? Am I? Or am I just wasting my time?
Respond:
Dear God,
Let my life bring honor to Your Name. I cannot begin to repay the sacrifice You have made for me on the cross. There are no words to describe my gratitude. There are no gifts I can give that would even begin to repay my debt. So I give You my life. Let my every word, thought, and deed, bring honor to You. Let me be a living Sacrifice.
Amen
