“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 your spiritual act of worship.” - Romans 12:1
Paul wrote this to a people who understood sacrifice. They saw it daily and participated in it often. They understood the need for sacrifice and how to do it. Let's take a moment and look at this. In view of God's mercy, His pardoning of our sin and His declaration of righteousness on our behalf, we should offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. We must understand the nature of sacrifice if we are to offer ourselves as living sacrifices as an act of worship. First let's look at the verbs use to describe sacrifices: to slaughter (done by the worshiper), to present (to bring near) a present, to prepare, to bless, to offer up, to burn up, and to vaporize. Are we worshiping God as living sacrifices? Are we asking Him to prepare us? Are we bringing to death those things in our lives which do not please Him? Are we presenting ourselves to Him as a present? Are we a blessing to God? Would others say our life is being spent in pursuit of God, that it is being burnt up (vaporized) pursuing Him? Is our life a suitable offering to Him? Remember the animal for sacrifice had to be without defect, blemish or spot.
Let's look at the types of offerings in the order they were to be presented: sin, guilt, burnt, cereal, drink, peace, wave, thank, votive, free-will, and ordination. The sin offering was given for the unintentional braking of the Lord's commands. The guilt offering was given for braking the law concerning the treatment of God's holy things. This offering was also given for unfaithfulness, deceit, lying, cheating, stealing, extortion, or losing someone's property and required the full payment and a 20 % return above that. The burnt offering was a voluntary act of worship, an atonement for unintentional sin or as an expression of devotion, commitment and complete surrender to God. The cereal and drink offerings were given as voluntary acts of worship in recognition of God's goodness and provision. They also were used to show devotion to God.
The fellowship offering was also a voluntary act of worship that was used to convey the desire for fellowship and to express thanksgiving. This sacrifice included a meal to be eaten in fellowship with God. These sacrifices were also called offerings of peace, wave offerings, thank offerings, votive offerings (given upon taking a vow), free-will offerings and ordination offerings (used in consecration to divine service). Here is the pattern for approaching God through the sacrifices demanded in the Old Testament: asking forgiveness of unintentional and intentional sin, expressing our devotion to Him, committing and completely surrendering to Him, recognizing His goodness and provision, desiring His fellowship, thanking Him, choosing to follow Him of our own free-will, living at peace with Him, vowing to serve Him, consecrating ourselves to His service.
These are the spiritual acts of worship Paul had in mind when he urged us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices” as our “spiritual act of worship”. Are we following the pattern of sacrifice which God has prescribed? Ask yourself “Is this really how I come to church ready to worship or am I trying to work through all of this during worship? More than that, am I continually presenting myself to God as a living sacrifice as an act of worship to Him?”
References
All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.
