Romans 12:1 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.

This verse has rightly been quoted by countless preachers down through the centuries, because it encapsulates so much of what we would call a Christian lifestyle. Again, this is something the world does not understand. As happened a few days ago, I again had to use a workaround to get the right character for “present,” when typing this in Japanese, because the Bible translators very rightly used the same character as in giving a monetary offering, and Microsoft doesn’t understand that at all. That’s why people have such trouble with the first amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion. They see religion as an external thing, something in which you participate, like a club, when faith in Christ requires total commitment. Worship isn’t simply a service you go to on Sunday mornings, it is a total giving of yourself to God. I could go on for hours about this, because, as Jesus quoted Isaiah 29:13 to say, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Matthew 15:8) His greatest conflicts were with hypocrites, those without integrity between their words and their actions. Whatever you do in terms of ceremonies and the like, it isn’t true worship if your heart isn’t in it, if you aren’t giving yourself to God in truth. That’s not to say that corporate worship isn’t valuable. On the contrary, there are experiences of God that can be had no other way, I think, and they are very desirable. However, if your life outside of the gathering doesn’t reflect the character of Christ, then your worship is shallow to the point of being meaningless.

This is something I have known on some level all my life, courtesy of my parents’ strong faith, but I have certainly grown in my understanding and practice of it. Having worked with Don and Katie Fortune as their interpreter when they came to Japan, the spiritual gifts listed in verses 6-8 are very big in my awareness, and I know that exercising the gifts God has given me are very much part of giving my body as a living sacrifice. If I decline to serve God through serving others, then my worship is shallow indeed. As it says in verse 3, I’m not to be puffed up about what God has given me but I am to be a faithful steward of it, worshiping God through my obedience. I’m not to deny that God has gifted me, but rather give Him glory in how I use those gifts. Only then can I be said to worship God properly.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me communicate it to the believers, so that they may have the joy of serving You, worshiping You, with all they are by Your grace, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!