Our Place in the Body of Christ
Opening Prayer
Lord, give me the grace to become like Isaac, who willingly allowed himself to become a sacrifice.
Read Romans 12:1–8
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Humble Service in the Body of Christ
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
“Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).
God is merciful. Everything that Paul has said so far in this letter relates to this truth. Our appropriate response to God’s boundless generosity should be to offer ourselves back to him to be used for his own purposes. Christians believe in sacrifice, but this is not the kind of external sacrifice that was being offered in Jerusalem’s temple, or any other such place. It is the sacrifice of our own lives, the voluntary placement on the altar of everything that we are or will be—a “living sacrifice” (1).
Let’s not imagine that this is easy. All of us are comfortable going along with the crowd, following the “pattern of this world” (2). It is stressful to be different. To be “transformed by the renewing of [the] mind” (2) we have to think a lot more about who we are and what we are doing. We are to define ourselves in relation to God, not primarily to ourselves or to others. We belong to Jesus by virtue of both creation and redemption, so we should not exalt ourselves unduly (3). Nor, by the way, should we think of ourselves too lowly. Rather, we may value ourselves as members of God’s new community, finding our value and our calling in relation to the people of God with their manifold gifts and functions.
In Christ we are participants in a movement that is new and dynamic. This is where we find our true identity. So much for western individualism. So much for inferiority complexes. The church is like the human body which is both one and yet diverse (5,6), and realizing that we belong to it is part of having our minds renewed.
Apply
How do you think about yourself? Most of us are a strange mixture of overestimating and underestimating ourselves. How might having a “renewed mind” make a difference?
Closing prayer
Lord, help me to fit into the forward motion of the Body of Christ according to the particular set of gifts and abilities which You have placed within me.
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