Our Sacrifice

“… offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” Romans 12:1

The workplace has a dwindling number of employees who would go beyond their call of duty and take an extra mile without thinking of repayment. Most workers demand pay for extra effort and time.

Sometimes we also think that the Christian life is like that, that God deserves only a portion of ourselves, of our time and money. But the apostle Paul is clear in his call for us to give our all to God. “Offer your bodies,” he says. Paul understands that we owe our whole being to God.

Paul distinguishes our offering from animals sacrificed lifeless on the altar. “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices,” he commands. Whether Paul already imagined the fastlane culture that leaves workers panting for breath – on the verge of collapse – we do not know. But he seems to have understood very well our propensity to inhabit this earth as “dead men walking”, thus his specific call for us to offer ourselves not in our pathetic and miserable state but in our vigor and strength.

It is necessary then that we take care of our wellbeing while we do acts of service. Indeed, we must serve well. But we must also live well. Only then can we truly serve God faithfully and excellently.

But Paul’s exhortation to offer ourselves as living sacrifices might as well refer to our transformed state, with “renewed minds” that know and understand God’s good, pleasing and perfect will. Alas, such new life emerges only after passing through the darkness of death, when old habits, old lifestyle, and old ways of thinking are cast away for good.

Our holy and pleasing sacrifice, then, is a life lived to the full in Christ.