A two-step guide to Christian living

With chapter 12, Paul comes to the “therefore” of his letter to the church in Rome. For eleven chapters he has been laying down a theological foundation and now he can lay out the kind of life it makes possible. And that is proper because apart from what God has done (1-11) there is no compelling reason why we should do what he says. In my commentary on Romans I put it this way: “Theology in isolation promises a barren intellectualism. Ethics apart from a theological base is impotent to achieve its goal” (p. 230).
         What Paul urges his readers to do is to “offer [their] bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God” (NET). Think about that for a moment; God expects believers to enter his presence and, as worshippers of that day offered sacrifices on the altar, we are to lay down our bodies as an offering to him. The implications are incredible. Offerings are burned up; our lives are to be given to him without reserve, to be used as he chooses. You may say that you don’t see that kind of commitment around you, and the only answer I can think of is that the God who gave us his Son expects us to give him all that we are. I suspect that is the reason why the text says we are to offer “our bodies.” The Christian faith is not simply a pleasant religious experience in which we do nice things, but an urgent call for complete surrender. That it often becomes something quite different does not change what it was meant to do.
         The way to accomplish the goal in verse 1 is spelled out in verse 2. We are not to “conform to the behavior and customs of this world” (v. 2). This clear message describes God’s intention for those who claim to believe. We are not to let the world determine how we are to live, how we are to think, or how we are to act. Has this bit of crucial instruction been forgotten by those who would adjust the message in order to reach today’s culture? For example, is not the current tendency to adopt the music of the street for worship at odds with Paul’s instruction about not letting the world “squeeze you into its own mold”? (J. B. Phillips).
         And the second part of the apostle’s instruction is of equal importance: “But let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (NLT). The Christian life is not following a set of rules but an inner transformation. God desires conduct to be determined by a change of heart, not by rigid obedience to external rules. A heart transformed by the grace of God doesn’t need to be told what to do, but allowed to do what it now wants to do. The ultimate guide for conduct is a heart that desires to reflect the beauty of a loving God.