Consecration: Living and Holy Sacrifice

Right now, today, God is speaking to the church a specific word of what He wants. And what He wants is often very different than what we want. As we saw in a previous message in Matthew 16, Peter had to learn that his interests were very different from God’s. We have to learn that lesson again and again.

How often we find ourselves just scraping by, surviving the Christian life either in a state of constant desperation or increasing apathy, and not truly fitted in as functioning members of the body of Christ. The key is not to seek a ministry, or a job in the church, not even to manage our pain within the church, but by God’s mercy to seek consecration.

God wants us all as believers to be fitted in as members living as He created us to live in love and unity and grace and truth in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many scriptures we could look to. Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:1-16 and more. For now, I want to focus entirely on Romans 12:1, a familiar verse to many, but one with deep implications for being a member of Christ.

”Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

(Romans 12:1 NASB95)

At this pivotal point in the book of Romans, Paul uses his “Therefore” to refer us back to the previous 11 chapters, where he has carefully laid out the incredible depths of all that we have in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. Furthermore, all that Paul is about to unfold for us in chapters 12-16 is because of “the mercies of God”. While it’s just a short phrase, it’s a very critical one. To be fit into the body of Christ, we must first recognize the mercies of God and walk in them.

When I look at how God has fit me in the body, I remember how His mercy has been an important foundation of my faith. We have to know God’s mercy, yes, doctrinally and in knowledge, but that will never be complete unless we can recognize it through experience and life.

Personally, the examples of God’s mercy in my life begin with my Christian heritage. I was raised in a beautiful Christian home, greatly blessed to be surrounded by the truth, to profess faith at age 5, and to slowly mature into my own. My father died when I was seven, but God’s provision was always there as my mom, a single mother of two, worked one day a week for several years because she wanted to stay home with her kids. This was not courage but faith in God’s mercy. For years, my mother prayed that there would be Godly men to walk closely with me and speak into my life. It wasn’t until high school and college that this began to happen, and ever since, I’ve always had an overabundance of older, Godly men to rely on as I learn Christ. In my twenties, God gave me an incredible zeal to serve Him and provided opportunities through various ministries, which He used in powerful ways. However, that zeal did not give way to the maturity in Christ that God desires. At age 30, by God’s mercy, He brought me into great brokenness, revealing that Jesus must be my only and ultimate source. Over the next 12 years, God carefully rebuilt a foundation in Jesus alone, which has gradually, over time, begun to produce the fruit I have been called to.

I see the mercy of God throughout my life. What do you see? Can you recount His mercy? Do you rely on it? God’s mercy in our lives is a necessary understanding of the heart if we’re to follow Paul’s next instruction to “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice” and ultimately be fitted into the body of Christ.

If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you can do that now and begin to know His mercy. If you have already surrendered your life to Jesus by faith, then you have been saved by grace, translated from the kingdom of death to the kingdom of eternal life, and must, necessarily, have been changed by Him. Every Christian can share the gospel, not in mere doctrinal knowledge or tracts, but simply by pointing others to the mercy of God they have experienced. What mercies have you seen? What mercies are so burned in your heart that you cannot unsee them?

”Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

(Romans 12:1)

Assuming we walk in the mercies of God, now we must address consecration. God will have His bride. God wants all believers to be tightly fitted into the body of Christ as uniquely gifted members. But before Paul explains the different members of the body in Romans 12, he first tells us to present ourselves as a “living and holy sacrifice.”

Consider what that means. Our bodies are meant to be a living and holy sacrifice. Think about Paul’s Jewish background and everything he was accustomed to with the sacrificial system. Also, remember that he’s writing to the church in Rome, which included many converted Jews who were also familiar with sacrifices and the burning of animals on the altar as an act of worship to God. So, when Paul says that we, our bodies, are to be the sacrifice, by the mercies of God, he is talking about an ongoing “living” burning by Jesus Christ, where our entire lives are offered on the altar, fully surrendered and consecrated to Him. The word “consecration” simply means separation from the world and the flesh into the holiness God wants.

We must place ourselves on the altar. By the mercies of God, allow Jesus to perform this consecration. It is a death of the old self that results in resurrection life in Christ. This is an ongoing consecration.

How often do we attempt to follow God while still clinging to the old man, to the ways and philosophies of the world? There must be a consecration where we allow God to burn these things up. At any moment, through God's mercies, as He reveals a conviction in your heart about your sin or a change that needs to happen, do not resist—repent quickly! From deep personal experience, I can say that any delay in repentance and obedience leads to blindness to that initial conviction. Conversely, any step of repentance or obedience will always bring clarity and true understanding of that very next step, however small it may seem. That is how you form a walk with Jesus. By God's mercies, one step of obedience at a time.

This daily walk of burning consecration to Jesus, this is “your spiritual service of worship.” Again, from my own pride and failings, I can tell you how Christianity today is fascinated by spiritual service and ministry. My own pride in ministry brought me to a place of great brokenness. But if we are able to receive God’s love and correction as He shines His light into our hearts, we can walk in true obedience, allowing consecration to have its effect. That is spiritual service. That is ministry and worship. Allowing God to have His way in our hearts by faith and obedience. Then you will see clearly that God is asking you to do something specific that organically grows into how you are fitted in as a member of the body of Christ.

We must stop seeking ministry. We must seek consecration and obedience, then look back and realize that God is having the ministry that He desires.