Our Bodies, a Living Sacrifices

I still have the thoughts of Romans 11 floating in my head. How we can't understand how his mind works, but we can give him glory.  

So when I read these first couple of verses of Romans 12, I can't help but wonder, are our bodies a way to give glory to God?

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Our bodies... our spiritual worship.
Our bodies... transformed by the renewing of our minds.

How do we get there?
First off... we can't go anywhere without the mercies of God.   We just can't.  Without his mercy given to us, we can't even come to him, to seek him, to seek after the salvation that he offers to us freely. 
Then we are to present OUR bodies.  Not someone's, but our very own bodies.  That needs to be our focus at this time.   We are then to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice.  

I need to think about what the means.  My body, a living sacrifice.  A sacrifice isn't your own, you know?  A sacrifice is something given for a higher purpose. Like people will sacrifice food in order to lose weight... that being a higher purpose then staying at a weight that's not healthy.   So if our bodies are meant to be a living sacrifice to God, then what are we giving up?  What am I giving up?

Giving up the world... do you see it.. it says in verse two.. DO NOT BE CONFORMED to this world. 

Our sacrifice is to chose to be transformed by the renewal of your minds.
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Renew your mind by.. testing!  Go figure that one eh?  Testing to understand, to discern, to know what the will of God is.  To understand what is good, acceptable and perfect. 

That's the kicker eh?  To figure out what God considers to be good, acceptable and perfect. 

If we do that then... we can proceed to offer our bodies as a holy and acceptable sacrifice to God.  It all ties together.   That's our aim here... to be acceptable to God, holy, acceptable, pleasing to God.   Because "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen."    So letting ourselves be transformed by the renewing of our minds, letting our bodies become that living sacrifice to him... it's the best we can do eh?

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