Romans 12:1-8
Living Sacrifices
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
3For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
St. Paul tells us that we should not conform with the patterns of this world...St. Paul knew we are creatures of habit...We go to bed wake up, start our routine, and do what we do every day...Most people repeat a same repetitive pattern of what we do everyday... Then again we repeat this pattern in our life...We go to bed and get up and repeat more or less what we did yesterday...Men, especially, the more is disciplined, they repeat this pattern and today is very similar to yesterday (or last week) and this becomes our pattern...Changing our patterns and routines become regimented as our daily and weekly lives...After a period of time it gets harder and harder to change this regiment...St. Paul tells us do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by renewing your mind...
Our purpose is to get closer to God...Up to St. Paul's time sacrifices we given to God for our sins...Now St. Paul tells us to give ourselves to Him...The sacrifice on animals or grains is not enough...Jesus sacrificed Himself for us...Now we must sacrifice and let go of material things, and external things and know love, and God's grace, and His love...St. Paul tells us we must let go and let God...Our biggest barriers in getting closer to God is ourselves...We are wicked, we are sinners...
St. Paul was very close to our LORD...St. Paul tells us to offer up our bodies to God...It seems to me that as we grow closer to God we will encounter some pain and need to make changes to get closer to Him...He is love and never sins, and St. Paul knew that to get even closer we have to change...Some of our sinful activities we have allow for pleasure...God wants us to be good...God wants us to be like Jesus...St. Paul tells us that we need to be transformed by the renewal of our minds...This transformation is a daily focus on the Father...He is with us everyday and lives with us in our hearts and minds...When we think about it, the Father was always with the Son...Jesus was focused on the Father and the Father was with Him, at all times...
St. Paul warns us not to think to highly of ourselves...We must not be proud or self-centered...We must think of ourselves with a more sober judgment...Seek the counsel wise mentors...
St. Paul tells us we each our given a gift or talent of God, given through His grace...He tells us use these precious gifts to share these (gifts) to help others and share these with others...
The parts and members of our bodies work together and share in the function of movement and thinking and us living...Our body parts work together and share in living...We are to share, and like our bodies we are to work together and share in the kingdom...
God has shared His life with us...We are part of His family...He gave us His Son for us...God loves us infinitely...