Devotions for 21st Jan 2017

Roms 12: 1  #daily devotions #scriptures #bible studies # gospel

I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.

Paul in writing to the Jewish believers in Rome reminded them that in their past, they had been accustomed to making sacrifices of dead animals and grain to Jehovah God but since Jesus had come and been offered as the perfect sacrifice once and for all for the sins of all men, He came as the lamb of God who is sinless and is the only perfect sacrifice acceptable to God.

Today we do not need to offer the same type of sacrifices as the Law of Moses had decreed. However, God still desire that we offer Him through other forms of sacrifices which are the sacrifices of our worship and thanksgiving. When we come before God and worship Him, our praises and worship are as sweet incense unto God.

Having said that, God also desire that the vessels that offer the sacrifices of praise must be clean and holy vessels. Let’s give an analogy for this. Do we bring offerings or gifts to the temple on dirty plates and instruments? Of course not! The dirty plates or vessels will contaminate the best offerings and will make them unacceptable.

In the same manner, when we bring praises and worship before God, our lives are the plates and vessels upon which we bring our sacrifices of praise and worship before God. So when our lives are not pure and holy but are sinful, contaminated and foul in the eyes of God, surely the sacrifices of praise and worship would not be acceptable to God.

The scriptures also tell us that it is out of the fullness of our hearts that we speak. So whatever words that come from our lips originate from the deepest recesses of our hearts. If our hearts are pure and holy then the words that come out are pure and holy. But if our hearts are not then the words that come out would also be the same.

Coming back to our sacrifices of praise and worship, if we do not have a pure and clean heart that our praises and worship would not be pure and holy and it would never be acceptable to God. They would be foul smelling before God. This was exactly what Jesus said about the Pharisees, they were hypocrites who were living in sin but outwardly put on a show of piety, they dress well, behave well but their hearts were unclean and Jesus knew that.

That’s why Jesus called them hypocrites and unclean tomb. Just clean on the outside but evil and foul in the spirit. It is along this same line that Paul now writes to the Jewish believers in Rome to offer their lives as living sacrifices which are pure and holy. It is only when they are pure and holy can their sacrifices of praise and worship is acceptable to Jesus Christ and to the Father.

This is still a valid command to the present day Church, if we want to live in the grace of God, we need to live lives that are pure and holy and only then would we be a delight to God. Only when we are pure and holy would God wait eagerly for us to come before Him daily to offer our sacrifices of praise and worship and only then would our sacrifices be as a sweet fragrance or sweet incense that will ascend up to God’s throne room.