In view of God's mercy; you are to "offer your bodies as living
sacrifices." As Paul puts it elsewhere, we are to glorify God in our body
(1 Cor 6:20). Our body is to be used to give thanks to God for His wondrous
mercy in Christ.
Many young people today are astonished by these words. When we look at TV
and movies and advertisements and the culture we live in, the message that young
people get is that the body is something to flaunt. Instead of using your body to
praise God, you are to use your body to lead someone on, to entice, to entrap and
entangle the body is put on display for others to ogle and leer at. So girls go out
into public or even come to church with dresses and skirts that are far too skimpy
and that expose way too much skin. And, guys give approving glances and grunts when
they see this -which is also totally inappropriate. Do we think, for even a moment,
that we are praising God with our body when we dress like this? I notice that all
sorts of young people appear in public today with rings in places I could not begin
to imagine even 15 years ago. I notice tattoos that make me blush as to their message
or symbolism. Do we think, for even a moment, that we are praising God with our body
when we appear like this?
What does it mean to "offer your bodies as living sacrifices"? Right away we can
discount the obvious. Paul is not telling us to become blood offerings, to kill or
be killed like the sheep offered at the Temple each day. We know that with the one
sacrifice of Christ good for all times, no further blood offering is necessary (Heb 10).
What Paul means becomes clear when we look at the following words. Paul tells us to
offer our bodies as living sacrifices, "holy and pleasing to God." It is clear what God
wants: on the negative side, He doesn't want us to use our bodies for sin; on the positive
side, He wants us to use our bodies only for what is good, pleasing, and perfect; in other
words, He wants us to engage in holy living.
Listen very carefully to what Paul says about this, earlier in Romans:
(Rom 6:12-13) ... do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil
desires. (13) Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness,
but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life;
and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
Did you hear that? "Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of
wickedness ..." What is Paul talking about here? Paul lived in a world filled with sexual
immorality: premarital sex, homosexual and lesbian sex, adultery, sexual abuse of minors.
Parties in which guests drank themselves into an alcoholic stupor were very common. Men
and women dressed in such a way that could only be described as immodest. "Offer your
bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." In other words, keep away from
such sins.
On the positive side, our bodies are to be "instruments of righteousness." This means
our lifestyle is to show that we are a member of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit.
It means that everyone ought to recognize you as a Christian by the way you live. It means
that you serve God in daily life. It means you use your body to do good and loving deeds.
Reading: Romans 6:1-2;12-13,
