Are Christians to be living sacrifices or, as the Communists call themselves, "dead men on furlough"? Both the divine exhortation and the socialist catch-phrase convey the idea of total commitment...complete dedication. Each calls for a type of servitude where the individual denies his own will in favor of the will of another. Each allows for the retention of individuality while requiring submission to a purpose greater than self. Plans, dreams, wishes dissolve that the will of a greater may prevail. For the Christian, the greater is God; for the Communist, it is the State.

The dissimilarities, however, are larger than the similarities. States come and go, while God endures forever. States practice evil, while God does only good. States degrade the individual, while God exalts him. States have no right to impose servitude; God has every right. The state deals only with time and earth, God with Eternity and Heaven.

In God's letter to the church of Rome, we read, "I am exhorting 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) These two verses might be thought of as the knot in a bow tie. Everything that has gone before flows into it and everything that follows flows out of it. Paul had spent the first eight chapters explaining salvation...telling the Romans how they had gone from being completely lost to completely saved by the grace of God alone. He had introduced the new and mind-boggling truth that man is justified, declared righteous, by faith and without works. He had vindicated God for declaring people righteous who had no righteousness of their own. He had demonstrated from Scripture and logic that, while the Romans could not possibly stand before God in their own human righteousness, they could not fail to stand before Him in God's righteousness, the gift righteousness provided by Calvary. Then, after explaining what had happened to Israel's program and when it would be reinstituted, chapters 9-11, Paul makes this great appeal to the believers to abandon their own wills in favor of the will of God. All that God has accomplished for us is one wing of the tie and flows into the knot. Our response to what God has done for us is the other wing of the tie and flows out of the knot. The knot brings both together. Doctrine and practice marry at Romans 12:1-2.

Paul's definition of salvation is radical! So is his formula for the Christian life! Salvation is by God alone...it is a divine production. But so is the Christian life. Only Christ can live it, so we must depend on the indwelling Christ to live His life in and through us.

Paul says, "I am exhorting you therefore, brethren." He uses brethren, the term of affection and equality. This is an entreaty, not a rebuke. The term brethren suggests that he is not asking them to do something that he himself, though their Apostle, has not done.

The exhortation is "by the compassions of God." Paul is not provoking them to action by threat of punishment nor by hope of reward. If the Romans become God's slaves (for to "present your bodies" is to become slaves), they must do it out of appreciation and not from fear of loss or hope of gain. To respond to the carrot and the stick would be to serve myself, not my Savior! The Apostle has been listing God's compassions in the first eleven chapters. If you want an exciting adventure, take a highlighter and mark all the things that became yours at the moment that you trusted Christ, that were not yours the moment before. Go through the Pauline Epistles starting with Romans, for all of the Bible is for us, but these epistles are to us and about us. Just a few of the things that we discover in Romans, the "Handbook of Salvation," are: We are declared righteous by faith alone, chapter 3; God is not charging sins to our account, chapter 4; Our Adam-life has terminated and our Christ-life has begun, chapter 5; The persons that we were, in sin and under condemnation died, once for ever, chapter 6; We were slain to the Law and delivered by Christ, chapter 7; There is now no condemnation and so no separation, chapter 8...etc. You will find many more as you study this crown jewel of Scripture. These things are eternal and priceless, eclipsing the value of anything we have, or ever could have, by way of material possessions.

But what of the knot? It looks back and asks us to recognize and appreciate all that God has done for us in pure grace. Then it appeals to us to make a decision right now, in the present, that will shape the future. Because God has "graced" us in overflowing measure, we are to respond in a certain way. Because grace has no strings attached, we must respond voluntarily. In the phrase "to present your bodies a living sacrifice," the word present is a military term. It does not connote yielding or surrendering, though it is often taught that way. One may yield grudgingly or surrender reluctantly, but one presents joyfully, eagerly, voluntarily, graciously. It is God's infinite goodness that is to prompt the Romans to do the ultimate...sacrifice themselves for the remainder of their earthly lives. What God asks us to do cannot be done "because we have to," it can only be done "because we want to."

When we make the body a sacrifice, we do all that we can do. There is nothing left to give once we have sacrificed the body. The spiritual part of us offers the material part of us. There is nothing beyond this! It truly completes the giving of ourselves to Him who owns us in the first place. The story is told of an American Indian chief, a believer, who listened to a message on the grace of God. As the speaker told of the infinite love of God displayed at Calvary, the chief was greatly moved. In gratitude, he walked down the aisle and laid his prize Bowie knife on the platform next to the lectern. "Indian give knife to Christ," he said, his voice wavering. Moments later, marvelling at the measureless grace of Christ, he went forward and left his prize serape beside the knife. "Indian give blanket to Christ," he said, eyes glistening. As the missionary continued to tell of the willingness of Christ to die for sinners, the Indian left the building only to return in minutes leading his beloved horse. "Indian give best friend to Christ," he said, choking back his emotions. Finally, the chief came forward and stood quietly before the pulpit. "Indian give self to Christ," he said as he knelt to pray. True service to Christ comes always and only out of appreciation for Who He is and what He has done.

While the word present is in the aorist tense in the original Greek and appeals for an action to be done immediately and finally, the word living is in the present tense and speaks of linear, or on-going action. The Romans were to adopt a permanent attitude as soon as they heard this verse read. That is the significance of the aorist infinitive present. Then they were to translate this attitude into a lifetime of action. That is the meaning of the present tense of the participle living. When an animal was sacrificed to the Lord, it came to the end of its own life but reached its highest and noblest purpose for existing. There is a sense in which Paul is asking the Romans and God is asking us, the Body of Christ, to come to the end of our lives as we have owned them, and to rise to the highest privilege available to man. We are not to shrink from slavery to God as too costly, but to mourn the fact that we have nothing more to give Him than that which is already His. Nathan Hale, Christian, school teacher, patriot, regretted that he had but one life to lose for his country. That we have so little to give should distress us, not that God asks so much. Christ held nothing back from God or man at Calvary when He presented His body in sacrifice to the Father. C.T. Studd said, "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him."

In the first century Greek in which God and Paul wrote Romans, we read that we are "to present [our] bodies a sacrifice, alive, holy, well-pleasing to God." Anything other than this is less than this, and surely nothing less than a holy [separated] life can be well-pleasing to God.

The verse ends by telling us that this sacrifice, this becoming in our daily practice a slave of Christ, is [our] reasonable service. The word service is the word for religious service or priestly service. It refers to our worship. The word reasonable, had it been transliterated, would read logical. Daily slavery to Christ is our logical worship.

I cannot worship God if I withhold from Him the sacrifice that He requires. If I approach the altar to sacrifice and refuse to place my body there, no other sacrifice can be acceptable. Abel offered the appointed sacrifice and it was accepted by God. Cain invented a substitute sacrifice, a lesser sacrifice, a different sacrifice than God had ordained and his offering was refused.

I receive numerous calls from people who want to know if we have "worship" at our assembly. They have been taught that to sing, or to pray, or to shout, or to light candles is to worship. Is it? If God refused Cain's offering but accepted Abel's, will he not reject all of Christendom's substitutes but receive Paul's? God instructed Adam concerning an appropriate offering and Adam instructed his sons. Abel followed instructions and Cain did not. Abel obeyed and Cain disobeyed. Is not obedience still required?

The only worship that God can accept today is that which produces complete enslavement to His will!