March 30
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed but the renewing of your mind, that you might prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
(We continue sharing thoughts from John MacArthur’s sermon on Romans 12:1-2.)
A living sacrifice has to ask, “Am I willing to live the rest of my life without anything that I hold dear?” That is a living sacrifice. This is what Abraham was willing to give when he was willing to sacrifice Isaac. Isaac would have been a dead sacrifice, if God had not intervened and saved him, but Abraham would have been the living sacrifice, having given to God his son, God’s fulfilled promise, his heir, his future posterity, and living without what was dearest to him. That is a man of God, willing to give and live without what is dearest to him. This is the basis of true worship and basis for all Christian dedication.
We want to offer ourselves to God if it doesn’t cost too much or inconvenience us too much. Most of us are nowhere near a spotless, unblemished, holy and pure sacrifice to God. Most of us are polluted with the world and double minded. We are not bringing a pure or whole sacrifice to God, just part of ourselves. We commit ourselves wholly to worldly pursuits but are not willing to give up sin and give ourselves wholly and holy to Him. In the Old Testament, they gave an external dead sacrifice, but now the believers are to give an internal living sacrifice. Real worship is not feelings or religious experiences but giving ourselves completely to Him internally, our soul and body and mind and will.
We are not to let our minds be conformed to the world but are to have them transformed by the Word of God. The spirit of the age, the spirit of the world is so prevalent, coming at us from the media, the movies, the news, and it is from the evil one. Stop allowing yourself to be conformed to the thinking of this age and start allowing ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit according to the Word of God. This occurs by renewing our mind, our mind, our mind. What is the key to a renewed mind? The Word of God. To walk worthy, we have to know the Word of God and renew our minds in it. A perfect life comes out of perfect knowledge. The renewed mind is a mind that is saturated and controlled by the Word of God. What are our mental reflexes? Is our response to things that happen to us biblical? Is our constant preoccupation the Word of God? It is the renewed mind that resists being conformed to the world, and it is the renewed mind that can present the body as a sacrifice to the Lord. The will also must be conformed to His will and His Word. We must want what He wants. Conform our will to His, and for that we have to give up our will and desires to Him. Desire only what He desires. A renewed mind will present itself in a submissive will.
These things we must do continually, daily, submitting on a minute by minute basis. Watchman Nee in The Normal Christian Life said, “It demands that I seek His pleasure, that I seek to satisfy Him only, and I do not mind how much it costs me to do so. There must be a willingness to yield, a breaking and a pouring out of everything to Him which gives release to that fragrance of Christ and produces in other lives an awareness of need, drawing them out and on to know the Lord. This is what I feel to be the heart of everything.…. Oh to be wasted, it is a blessed thing to be wasted for the Lord.”