Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
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The Questions
1) What is Paul referring to when he “urges” us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”? (verse 1)
2) How is true worship defined and what does it look like?
3) What is Paul’s call to action for the believer in everyday life?
Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Original Intent
1) What is Paul referring to when he “urges” us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”? (verse 1)
Paul is writing his longest preserved letter and it’s packed full of solid truth for what the gospel is, and how we are to live in the reality of that glorious truth. Paul’s urging here to his readers at the house churches of Rome isn’t about a one-time offering to God, or a single moment of sincere surrender. Following God equals offering ourselves fully to Him in willful obedience. Every day. All together in unity with believers everywhere. In accordance with the time, Paul’s exhortation to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice”, would have been a foreign concept to the Greek audience. A Greek would never say this. According to William Barclay, a prevalent Greek philosophy was “only the spirit of a person mattered, the body was only a prison cell, and was something to be despised and even ashamed of.” Paul’s calling was counter-cultural to the individualistic Greek, as he urged them to view their bodies, fully connected with other believers, as daily, living sacrifices to the Lord in response to His sacrifice for them. Paul is answering his audience’s question of how to live everyday lives in light of all God had accomplished for them through in Christ’s sacrifice. In the Old Testament, sin was atoned for, or forgiven, when an animal was sacrificed on behalf of the person who sinned. When Christ sacrificed Himself for us, once and for all, on the cross, animal sacrifices were no longer needed. His sacrifice purchased our freedom from sin’s penalty of death, our response to such lavish love is surrender to the One who loved us enough to die for us. That surrender doesn’t consist of taking the life of animals, but in giving up one’s own. The sacrifice of obedient lives is the only reasonable response to the grace of God.
2) How is true worship defined and what does it look like?
The Greek word we read in this verse simply as “worship” carries the deeper idea of “reasonable service”. Paul had spent the first 11 chapters of Romans explaining the magnificence of God, His vast, unending love for us, and our own impossible situation of death brought about by our own sin. In light of these blatant realities, the redeemed believer’s “reasonable service” IS worship. Worship includes a spiritual offering by mind and heart and a physical offering as we use our bodies, our time, talent, and treasure to Him as a gift of love. Worship is the act of attributing reverent honor and homage to God with everything we have. Worship overflows from our lives when we remember how magnificent He is, how worthy He is, and how good He is, regardless of our circumstances. Worship acknowledges He alone is the One True Living God and worthy of all honor and praise. He is worthy of our whole life sacrifice of worship!
3) What is Paul’s call to action for the believer in everyday life?
A dedicated life of surrender is also a transformed life, deeply committed to God with a heavenly calling for obedience on earth as He builds His eternal kingdom through us. While the believer has been promised rescue from this present evil age (Galatians 1:4), which has Satan for its god, we still live here until that day when we finally experience our full rescue and are welcomed home to glory. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices while we reside in this world of brokenness and sin. God could instantly take us to Heaven when we become Christians, but He keeps us in this world to call more to Himself through our sacrifice of worship. He has called us to proclaim Him, through our physical bodies and spiritual hearts, declaring with bold worship of the magnificence of Him who “called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) God makes this proclamation of His glory through us as He transforms us through the power of His Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We are called to stop living like we once did, before we were made new in Christ. We have been given a new identity, and we are to submit to the Spirit as He entirely transforms us. We must constantly renew our mind, feasting on the life-giving word of God (the Bible). (John 17:17) As we do, we delight ever more so to submit to the work of the Spirit in our lives as He makes us new, declaring God’s glory through our sacrifice of surrendered worship.
Everyday Application
1) What is Paul referring to when he “urges” us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice”? (verse 1)
Because of God’s rich mercy towards us in Jesus, Paul urges us, you and me as believers in Jesus, to offer the whole of who we are in continual, everyday sacrifice back to Him. Our physical bodies with our hands, tongue, eyes, arms, and mind, all given over to be used by God in our ordinary, everyday life. All of our daily tasks, the way we drive our cars, speak to the cashiers, interact with our spouse, serve our neighbors, and care for our children, everything we do can be given as an offering of worship to the God who offered Himself for us. He does not desire a portion of our lives, for He is a jealous God who knows we will never be fully delighted in Him until we give Him every aspect of our whole selves. Rather than living by the standards of the world, and at a constant unharmonious discord with God, believers are to let the renewing of their minds by the power of the Holy Spirit transform our lives into unity and conformity with God’s will. Saying yes to Jesus is an entire way of life, and it will always involve offering ourselves as living sacrifices as God continues to build His kingdom in and through us. God intended our surrender to not simply be something we verbalize or nod our head to, rather it is to involve the whole of who we are in body, mind, and soul. After all, God did not begrudge taking a human body upon Himself to live in it and work through it, offering Himself wholly as a sacrifice for us! What will you offer Him today?!
2) How is true worship defined and what does it look like?
We often say we are going to church to worship God, but we should also be able to say we are going to work, school, caring for the family, staying at home as a mom, or going to the grocery all to worship God. We worship Him in how we act, what we say, where we go, and what we do, both alone and in the presence of others. Worship isn’t merely a hand raised at church, or a song on the radio, but an entire life given over in surrender. THIS is the worship Paul was conveying to his audience. Our lives are ready instruments intended to be offered in everyday worship, this is the only reasonable response to God. The offering of EVERY MOMENT and EVERY ACTION to God is our sacrifice of whole life worship. Sometimes it’s hard to worship God, (hence the sacrifice part), but true, reasonable act of service back to God, requires our minds and hearts to shift from circumstance to His unchanging character, His lavish love, and His constant presence with the believing heart. How will you worship Him today?!
3) What is Paul’s call to action for the believer in everyday life?
When we believe and truly receive Jesus as our Savior, trusting that His work on the cross paid the debt for our sin that we could never pay, His Spirit is given to live within us. This Spirit of the Living God is the power of transformation at work in us. This work is not something we can manufacture on our own ability; it is only from God! (2 Corinthians 3:18) From that first moment of initial surrender to the rest of our days on earth, we are learning the depths of surrender, becoming more like Christ, and Jesus becomes ever sweeter to us as we journey the path before us, following Him, and becoming transformed by Him. This is a radical change from the moment we say YES, LORD, I BELIEVE. We are saved from sin and death in a moment, but we are transformed to be like Jesus over a lifetime. This transformation is not without daily, sometimes moment-by-moment struggle as we fight against being conformed to the world, instead choosing our surrender to God’s powerful Spirit working in us. If we conform to the ways of the world, we are dominated by human nature. When Christ comes into a man’s life, he is a new man, his mind is different, for the mind of Christ is in him. “The old has passed away and the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) The glorious result of this amazing continuous transformation is that God displays His glory through our renewed lives to people around us who desperately need His salvation and transformation for themselves!
How will you surrender today?!
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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!
1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God
in your everyday!
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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