Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1 NKJV
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

Romans 12:1 Message Bible
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life---- your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life....and place it before God as an offering.

All part of the recovery process....this giving of yourself to God.
Paul, the author of Romans, describes it as being a "living sacrifice"."
Is it just me  or do those two words, living and sacrifice, not go together.
Whenever I think of sacrifice, I think of something dead. Something that was offered up for a greater good. Jesus became a sacrifice to pay the sin debt humanity owed.
So why us? Why do we become a sacrifice?
Well I think you have to look at the word that precedes the word sacrifice.
Living!

We are giving up ourselves...our ways...our old lifestyle...our wants and desires that come from our old sin nature...we are giving all that up to embrace a new way of living.
But before I can take up the role as a living sacrifice, I have to see and find the value in doing so. I have to realize the value in going through this process of transformation. If I don't and I try to do this whole "living sacrifice" thing in my own strength and effort, I will only become a religious attitude and behavior added to a long list of stupid, religious behaviors that have no value for real living. In other words, it's me trying to look like I've got it all together. It's me trying to look like I'm working a recovery program. It's me with not change whatsoever to my heart, my will and my character. As a friend of mine once stated...."You take a drunk horse thief and get him sober, and all you've still got a horse thief. No change on the inside.

I am a true living sacrifice when I offer myself completely to Him.
Offer myself for His guidance...
Offer myself for His life in place of mine.
You want recovery from your addiction...
Simple...
Change the heart (as only God can) by working Steps #1, #2 and #3.
Change the heart and your change the mind.....Steps #6 and #7
Change the mind and you change the behavior.....Steps #8 through #11
Steps #4 and #5 are the confession steps to free yourself from your past.
and finally...
Step #12 is the taking this new life to the streets.....a daily practicing of the principals that you have learned, along with a renewed desire to tell your story to others.
Why?
Because you are a living sacrifice....
dead to the old life...
Living in the new one.

God on you..
mb