A living sacrifice

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. – Romans 12.1-2

If there were one passage of scripture that could really sum of what Christian living and our progressive sanctification is all about it would be this one.

Progressive, or practicable, sanctification is how we live out our holiness in between our positional sanctification in Christ and our perfect sanctification to come.

Paul’s answer is clear. We are called, like Isaac, to crawl up on the altar and offer our lives as a sacrifice to God. Isaac didn’t know what was going to happen, but he trusted God and his dad.

I don’t know all that it means when I present my body as a living sacrifice. I do know that it means I yield my desires to Him. It means I follow the spirit and not the flesh. It means I give my all, all me, every fibre of my body, mind, and soul to wish will. I literally offer everything to Him, my wife and children and my job and my time and my resources are now all His to use as He desires.

When we wonder about God’s will this is it at the core. I do what He wants from me. I choose His way and not mine.

Is my all on the altar of sacrifice laid?

My heart does the Spirit control?

I  can only, I can only be blessed

And have peace and sweet rest

After I have yielded unto the Lord

My body and my soul