Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.”
God wants living sacrifices, not suicide bombers. He wants balanced, not blinkered, commitment. A Latin American Marxist student broke off the engagement to his fiancée in a letter, giving the following reasons: “Marxism is the one thing about which I am in dead earnest. It is my life, my business, my hobby, my dream, my sweetheart. I work for it in the daytime and dream of it at night. I cannot carry on any friendship, or love affair or even conversation, without relating it to this force which drives and guides my life.”
Well, that’s way too extreme. You can’t deny the depth of conviction and commitment to his cause, but Jesus isn’t asking us to adopt such blinkered and imbalanced loyalty. We don’t just want to replace a single-issue Marxist fanatic (or Islamist, or secularist etc.) with a single-issue Christian fanatic. It’s not the case that God matters more than everything else, so nothing else matters in the light of him. On the contrary: because God matters infinitely, everything else matters much more in the light of him.
So the environment matters immensely, because God is Creator of the world. He loves his world, is committed to it, died for it, and will ultimately re-create it. Art matters because we’re made in God’s image, and his creativity has been passed on to us. Justice matters, because it’s an intrinsic component of God’s character. That’s why Christians are to be at the forefront of shaping and contributing to issues of the environment, the arts, justice, or whatever other sphere, as we seek to witness to our Creator and bring glory to him.
How are you choosing to offer yourself up as a living sacrifice today? He gave you all your gifts. Use them for his glory.
Lord, I choose to offer myself up to you as a living sacrifice. Use me as you will. Amen!
PS Romans 12:1 was the topic of my short Book, Sacrifice. Check it out here.
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