Paul begins by giving us a positive to do. Sacrifice our bodies to God in worship. Lets find out what this means.
It seems that we are completely Spiritual Beings. We treat things as eternal things. another way to put it is everyday we worship, maybe even every second. Whenever we give our body to things, we are committing in one way or another worship. As Romans 1 tells us, we either worship God or worship what God made. Paul urges the Romans to sacrifice their body to God. Not to immediately die, but a sacrifice that lives, A "living sacrifice". Not simply to do it, but in light that God is a merciful God who will actually accept our sacrifice. If he would not accept our sacrifice to him, their would seem to be no good result for us. Even though God deserves it.
Anyway. What is a sacrifice? I guess we have to go back to the Old Testament where sacrificing was a common and essential practice. Sacrificing meant giving up a living animal to be killed for the sake of a sinful human for God. God wanted blood for offending Him, instead of punishing the human, the innocent animal was killed. This is a foreshadowing of what Jesus was going to fulfill. Our sin could not be satisfied on a small animal, because it was too big a deal for God. We needed an eternal and forever valuable sacrifice for our messed up state. Jesus the God-man came to be our sacrifice. Lived and late Died for our sin so God could give us mercy. Because of this we should sacrifice ourselves alive on Earth. Because we have mercy and a future promise to live forever with God, we should worship with our bodies on Earth to God. This living sacrificing is "holy" and "pleasing" to God. God is pumped about it, it is special to Him. He gets excited about it. Its what He has wanted all along. People who would declare in their life "God is the most precious being to me and not what things on earth offer me." Sacrifice is generally the way we worship. We sacrifice time to gain something, we sacrifice comfort, we sacrifice our money, and in the end we sacrifice our life. The object to whom this sacrifice goes is God. The temptation would be something to sacrifice to something other than God. It is a willing sacrifice, not a hesitant and unhappy sacrifice to our merciful God. But a happy one. Knowing the one who is most valuable and precious should gain our complete self in service and worship.
sacrifice is spiritual worship. It is an act. It is not simply a Sunday thing, but a daily, hourly, and minutely thing. God wants our whole life in sacrifice toward Him in worship.
After giving something positive to do, Spiritual Sacrifice to God. Paul gives a negative thing to stop doing. Stop conforming to the pattern of this world. Lets look at what this means.
Stop conforming to the pattern of this world. Well its not another world, its the one were in. This text assumes that the world and its teaching is giving Advertisements to us to think, live, and act a certain way. That we should reject what it conforms to. What does the world conform to? If bodily sacrifice is what God wants because it worships God, thank anything else that doesnt worship God is what the world conforms to. So when we notice we aren't worshiping God, how can we tell were doing that?
What is our mind consumed with? What is our time consumed with? What is our efforts consumed with? What is our conversation consumed with? I think the answer to these questions will quickly expose world-conformed worship or God-conformed worship.
How do we react to this tendency to conform to this world? How do we combat that so we can be God-worshiping instead of world-worshiping. Paul continues and tells us a positive thing to do to combat and stop doing the negative conforming to the pattern of this world. This is to be transformed by renewing our mind.
The sad news Paul is telling us is this, is that we are on a negative trajectory. We are on the normal direction to love, think, and act as world-worshipers. To continue moving in that direction, that we cant simple change behavior and thinking on our own.
We need to be changed from an external source to begin and continue in God-worshiping. Now lets see how this can happen to us. This transformation happens from a new mind. A new way of thinking. How do we change our thinking?
Well we need someone to change our mind, a mind that is not our own. Maybe a Christian. But less trustfulness for this source, knowing all people are on this negative trajectory.
What about God, how can we gain the way that God sees everything which is the way we want to go. Well God wrote a book, the Bible. If we can get that into our brains and change our thinking, I think that could be a sufficient source for a renewed mind that Paul is wanting to accomplish.
When our minds are renewed or transformed. Then some spiritual benefits come from it. Were now able to test and filter in our life what things are God-worship and what is world-worship. Or as the text says, "What God's will is". Similar thinking. What God wills is God-worship. So the renewing of the mind helps us fight against world-worshiping or world-conforming so that we can sacrifice our bodies to God in God-worship. This is what God wants. What God wants is described as good, pleasurable, and perfect. In other words; It is a good thing, it should completely satisfy us, and there is no flaws in it.
So lets fight to stop world-worship and pursue violently God-worshiping.
