Therefore, brethren, I pray you for God’s mercy to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your rational worship. And do not settle for this century, but transform yourself by renewing your spirit, so that you may experience what is god’s good, pleasant and perfect will. (Romans 12: 1-2)
Today’s Brazilian Christianity lives in general in a state of alienation and reductionism, because it does not know the depth of God’s Word, but we are called to have the spirit of Christ.
- We have been called to serve God alive.
- We must learn to live in the novelty of life; and living in the novelty of life has implications.
- The first is that we have an obligation to know the scriptures in depth.
We are all debtors of God’s grace, of divine mercy; However, within the church, we have many people who have not really understood the doctrine of justification only by faith; many still think they can buy a piece of paradise with their good deeds. Pastor, when was the last time you preached that we cannot buy our salvation?It is because we preach a lame gospel, a gospel that is not the gospel of Christ that says that people can buy something from God, that many are not. sure of his salvation.
The first chapters of Romans speak of the gospel of God and we must know that, from chapter 1 to 3 we speak of our perdition, from 3 to 5, our justification, from 6 to 8, our sanctification (no one can revoke our salvation), from 9 to the 11, Israel and the election. Are these mercies of God that Paul pleads with? From chapters 12 to 15, Paul goes on to talk about how we will live.
In chapter 11, Paul ends with a doxology. This shows us that all good theology leads to doxology in full worship!Ah, because the church lacks good theology, it needs to know the Word of God, the correctly understood Word of God leads to worship. Theology is not studied by theology, but to know and love God more. Good theology leads us to a complete and biblical cult. Bad theology leads to a false cult that displeases God. Unfortunately, the church today does not focus on the glorification of God. , but in what you can earn/buy from God.
Paul’s answer is the antithesis of what the modern evangelical church does. The modern gospel emphasizes that we must obtain as much as we can from God and obtain all the blessings, all blessings, all we can. But Paul said, “Give everything to God!True spirituality, true worship, in Spirit and in truth, is not done by taking away God, wanting more from Him, but by totally handing over to Him.
When it comes to salvation by grace, there is always the question of the relationship between faith and works. Do we need to understand that salvation comes to us only by grace?The work is christ’s! We are saved by faith, trust, in the work of Christ, and not by a good work we do. This is not to say that the Christian should not do good deeds. Tiago claims that a faith without works is dead. It is in the works that we show the reality of our faith. John says that if someone claims to love God but does not love his neighbor, he is a liar; it is in relationships that we confirm the veracity of the works.
Thus, saved by faith, we begin to give a living worship to God, trust in God leads us to present our bodies as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is our rational worship. his ability to sin; and when he sins, he must approach God to offer his body, not to sin, but to God, as a living sacrifice. This sacrifice is not a sacrifice to be saved. We are saved only by the sacrifice of Christ. This sacrifice is a sacrifice of sanctification offered with joy!The Christian is not offered in sacrifice with sadness, but with joy, because he knows that it is a sacrifice offered to God.
It is a sacrifice in itself, alive and undead, holy and pleasant
We are not offering a dead sacrifice to God, but a living sacrifice. We offer a holy sacrifice. The Christian has no division between the sacred and the secular (in the Church we are one person and in the other world), because the Christian offers a holy sacrifice at all times of his life, whether in the temple, at work or at home. . . We are totally separate people for God. If you really want to worship God here and now, that worship should cover all areas of your life (relationships, work, studies, etc. )
Paul then talks about what we should not do and what we should do; we must not conform to the standards of the world, but we must be receptive to divine action to renew our minds and thus be transformed. with God’s means of grace (talking, praying, communion of saints, etc. ).
A transformed spirit produces a transformed will, through which we become desires, with the help of the Spirit, to leave our own will and submit to God’s will.
Paul in the remaining chapters continues to describe how God transforms life and mentions:
If we do less than that, we will make a sacrifice that does not correspond to what God has asked for. As a people saved by grace, God demands that, in our sanctification, we present him with a living, holy and pleasant sacrifice.
By: Mauro Meister. Préché on 10/02/13, in the XV Christian Consciousness (VINACC). Copyright © 2013 Christian Consciousness. Website: http://www. conscienciacrista. org. br/.
Summary by: Let’s Go Back to the Gospel. Original: Mauro Meister? The Living Worship of God – 15CC
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