We see here in a place like Micah "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself down?" "What should I bring to God?" Then he mentions sacrifice. It can lead the unwary to thinking that God does not want sacrifice. No, no, no. That is not true at all! The day of sacrifice is not over, as Romans 12:1-2 very clearly shows.
We are going to put this together now with the lesson of Colossians. Sacrifice, asceticism, giving things up, giving time up, or whatever it might happen to be—sacrifice without the right motivation, sacrifice without truth, is of no value. It may profit the body for a little while. But in terms of relationship with God, it does not help at all.
I beg you, Paul is saying here. That is the meaning behind that word beseech. I beg! He is yelling, I beg you, brethren!
Paul is telling us how we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, and it is through our daily sacrifices in the service to God and service to fellow man. And then for the remainder of this chapter, actually starting in verse 9 through 21, Paul expounds on the daily sacrifices that will help transform us to be like God. And I am going to pull out just a few of these. You can kind of follow along here as I go through these, starting in verse 10 all the way to the end of the chapter.
Here we see Paul giving the church their marching orders, so to speak. It is our sacred duty to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. That is, our bodies, our minds, our actions so they will align with God's purposes. This requires that we submit our desires, our plans, and even our fears. We are to live a life set apart from this world that we may be pleasing to God, to be transformed and shaped into His character. Like I said, there is no doubt, maybe whoever wrote this read Romans 12.
John Ritenbaugh was fond of quoting J.B. Phillips’ translation of this verse, which says, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.” Again, we see the world—Babylon—contrasted with the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We serve either one or the other. To the degree that we allow the world and its voices to influence us, we are a slave to that influence and less free to follow God.
And His perfect will is that we yield to His Holy Spirit.
