This is a verse I often hear abbreviated and miss represented, so I thought I’d put my opinion on the subject out there.
Romans 12:1
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
God considers our complete surrender as a living sacrifice as "Reasonable service". That is to say a general requirement for anyone who wishes to follow Christ.
We often here people make statements that say full surrender to God allows him to do powerful things in our lives.
Although I do not disagree with the above statement, I propose this, that anything less than our daily attempt at full submission to God is not Christianity at all. Anything more is impossible.
Some versions translate this verse to say, "This is your spiritual act of worship" and not "reasonable service". If you follow through a pretty basic thought progression about worship, you will soon see that in this instance, these statements mean basically the same thing.
With this in mind, it is important to note that this verse also starts by saying this can only be done "by the mercies of God". This point is also commonly missed, however, when you interpret the rest of the verse as I do, it becomes vital information, as we could never achieve these requirements on our own.
Thus, Christianity becomes the strive for perfect submission to God, but only through his own mercy and power.
Wow! Now that's a crazy powerful verse.
This is the truth that I feel is lost when this verse in not fully quoted.
A by-product of this interpretation is that it creates a clearly defined, black and white idea of what Christianity is, without invoking a whole range of rules and regulations. This creates a situation where God can easily divide the sheep from the goats as it were, without creating the legal mess Christ died to save us from in the first place.
How often do you see the whole Christian experience summed up in three lines? Answer me that! Interesting that it's a statement which compels actions and not ideas no?
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1 comment:
mmm, deep thoughts there Nath. Its true though that that is the minimum expected of a follower of Christ, and it leaves me lacking.
Last week Mark expounded slightly on the following verses, which give a picture of what that living sacrifice looks like. Its possibly one of the most confronting pieces of scripture.
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