Romans 12:1-2 has come up soo many times since our training weekend, it's kiiiiinda blowing my mind. "Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is you spiritual act of worship. Do 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."
Something that SLO Crusade has talked about a few times this year is our tendency when we get on the altar as a "living sacrifice" to crawl off before we actually make the sacrifice. Every morning we get up and say "Lord, this day is yours." Yet, when he asks us to love and serve those around us, to give up our time, money, etc, I think we all have our days when we'd rather crawl off the altar than actually follow through with the sacrifice. We have a choice every day to be a living sacrifice, and generally speaking I like to think I am pretty good at getting on the altar in the morning. But throughout the day, do I stay there? Daily, do I die to the old self so that life is revealed in my body? It needs to be continual submission to the altar, all day, every day. Otherwise, it isn't a sacrifice.
And when we do submit to the altar, it is worship. It is an act of continual worship to our creator to stay on the altar. Yahweh's name is glorified, lifted high and He is shown to the world. We sacrifice ourselves, our lives, our time and our plans for our life because we love Jesus, because we want to worship him through everything we do. And each time we become living sacrifices, we come closer and closer to the character of Jesus. He sacrificed everything for us, we sacrifice everything for his glory, so his message would be seen through us, as his humble servants, at school, at work, on the water, and in this world.
Going back to Romans 12, with this sacrifice comes transformation. When we lay down the things of this world on the altar (with ourselves), we renew our mind with the things above, with the truth of the gospel, with love and we become transformed by the overwhelming greatness and power of our Lord. This takes me back to the devo from "A Sincere Love for People" (Week 2) where it said "The process always begins with intense pain, but ends with joyful transformation." Staying on that altar is, no doubt, going to be painful (I love Eric's imagery a few posts down). It's going to hurt, bad. But I also believe that submitting to the pain and the sacrifice is going to hurt a lot less than trying to resist it. The pain of the sacrifice will ultimately be won over by the joy that is felt when Jesus picks up all the broken, nailed pieces of our lives and puts them back together in a new being.
Yahweh, thank you for your transforming power. Thank you for picking up the pieces of our lives and making us whole again, day after day after day. Every day, may we learn to climb upon the altar you have called us to, and stay there. Submitting to you as a living sacrifice and worshipping you in the process. May the joy of the transformation be on our hearts as we endure the pain of our daily crosses. Lord, help us stay put.
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