Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: Romans 12 and Psalm 108

Romans 11 invited us to marvel at the mercy of God, and now chapter 12 begins with the instruction:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (v.1-2)

As Christian disciples, our everyday lives are to be a grateful, worshipful response to God’s incredible mercy towards us. To truly and properly worship the God who has mercifully saved us begins with a firm decision of the will to dedicate ourselves to Him completely and to live our daily lives entirely in such a way as to please Him.

This act of absolute surrender and dedication is two-sided. It involves turning our backs on and rejecting our old, worldly ways of living, and then cooperating with the Holy Spirit as He works to transform us into God-pleasing ways of living. J.B. Philips translated verse 2 like this: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the Plan of God for you is good, meets all His demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.“

The Holy Spirit goes to work in every Christian disciple who rejects our old sinful ways and is fully and joyfully submitted to our Lord. He breathes new life into our minds and our wills so that we can know how the Lord wants us to live, desire to live that way, and be empowered to live that way in practice.

The rest of Romans 12 is a profoundly practical and quite detailed description of some of the aspects of the God-pleasing life into which the Holy Spirit will guide us. I encourage you to read it carefully and prayerfully, and I suspect that as you do so you will agree with me that we could summarise it like this:

Love the Lord by serving the best interests of others with the love, the resources, the abilities and the power the Lord gives you. Love the Lord by loving other practically.

Life Application: Read through Romans 12 and allow the Holy Spirit to bring into focus one specific instruction for you to obey today, as an act of living worship. Then spend the day looking for every opportunity to do so.