Romans 12:1 New English Translation (NET Bible)
The Process Toward Transformation in and With Christ
12 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters,[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—alive, holy, and pleasing to God[b]—which is your reasonable service.
If you want to be transformed...
STEP 1: LEARN THE CONCEPT OF
SACRIFICE
A LIVING SACRIFICE
- · Sacrifice – Something given away; given up. To God. The reward is to know Him more deeply by being transformed.
- · A sacrifice that produces a reward of enjoyment
- · Going a different direction we are not familiar with; requiring trust; maybe having hesitant feelings.
o Transferring over to new ground; unfamiliarity, unsure
- · Leaving the old behind
- o Meaning accepting the conditions laid out to us and willingness to leave aside what’s asked of us.
- o Abandoning my desires, my wants, my feelings, my rights, my ways, what I love, my plans, my agenda, my time, my activity, my expectation of respect.
· Sacrifice to Christ
- o His plan, His lessons, His wisdom, His ways we do not know but require our trust to accept what will come our way because He is in control.
- · Sacrifice – is something that incurs a loss, a willingness to accept the loss believing for something better from Christ. It is counting all things but loss.
Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
· The Result and Reward – Is the enjoyment of something better. We never truly lose by giving up anything that God does not exceed the reward for sacrifice. His benefits far exceed what we hurt in giving up. God makes up for the pain of losses. You will never know until you do this
· The Sacrifice - Is obeying; trusting what He tells us.
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