06.03 | Therefore
Romans 12
‘I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.’
Romans 12:1
Therefore.
Therefore is a word we use, when we’ve established an idea, and we ready to move onto the consequence. It’s when we transition from theory to activity, from idea to movement, from thinking to doing. It’s the fulcrum of the seesaw and the hinge of the door.
I am hungry, therefore I will eat.
I am sleepy, therefore I will go to bed. Or make coffee.
I am convinced, therefore I will speak.
I believe, therefore I will act.
X is true, therefore I will do Y.
We live in a world where there is a great danger that we never quite reach therefore. The mass of available information in the digital age offers us endless ideas, but that never therefore’s us into actually living differently. Our danger is that we become weighty in knowledge but remain flimsy in wisdom; that we become mighty in facts, but minnows in the substance of life and love and people and the grit and grubbiness of the world around us. Therefore is the great transition. It turns great thoughts into great lives.
Paul begins today with therefore.
Because of all he has said, therefore.
You, who were created good, but then abandoned God, and were given over to broken desires and broken lives. Who lived with the Law under sin and death (Jew), or without the Law under sin and death (Gentile), and gradually came to the realisation that you didn’t need a rulebook, but you needed a Saviour. Who came to this Saviour, not with a sweeping resumé of righteousness credentials, but with brokenness and humility to receive His life and His victory in the atmosphere of His healing compassion. Who have been reconciled with the Father of indescribable love, and who have the Spirit of God literally dwelling within you—to lead and change and remind you of all that is true and good. Who have been grafted into the ancient roots of God’s Story from the beginning of the ages and the sum of the Scriptures to this very moment.
Therefore,
Paul says,
present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
Because of all of this, lay down everything, that your life may no longer be viewed as your own, but may be given over to Him. To knowing Him. To doing His stuff. To contending His cause. To the advance of His Kingdom.
The pivot is so radical. It is the switch from how He may bless me, to how I may offer my life unto the blessing of His name and the advance of His cause.
The shape of the therefore is surrender. And Paul unpacks it in three ways.
Surrender your thoughts. Let your mind be renewed by God, that your thought life is not shaped by the thought life of the world around you, but is re-formed to the shape of heaven. That your values and ideas and morality and identity are removed from their saturation in the norms of the secular, and become new again in the norms of that which is eternally sacred.
Surrender your gifting. God has created you to do things. He has inscribed purpose into your life, that is to be used for His cause. Surrender into actually doing it. Casting aside the fear and the self-doubt and the sickly allure of mediocrity, and stepping into what you have been created for. For the prophets to speak up; for the leaders to lead with zeal, for the teachers to teach and the money-makers to live with radical generosity. The ends of your gifting is not your fulfilment; it is His cause.
Surrender means love. Because of His love, love greatly. Think of love less as a feeling you have (or don’t have), but as a series of actions that you choose. The feelings usually follow. Daily give yourself to the simple and consistent things of speaking blessing and living with generosity and laughter and tears and forgiveness and the restoration of honour to distorted lives. Let your lives be given to this great and organising principle that guides all activity in the therefore of the Kingdom: Love.
The Story has been told. The ideas have been established. And what is before us is the mighty invitation of
Therefore.
Reflect:
Thoughts; Gifting; Love.
Which act of surrender do I most need to step further into today?
Pray:
Father,
I feel trepidation.
Surrender is terrifying;
It abandons my semblance of control over my life,
And casts me upon nothing but trust in your goodness.
But today, my Father,
I make my choice,
To the measure of my strength;
I choose to surrender my life again.
Take my thoughts, and conform them to the things of heavenly truth;
Take my abilities, and let them be useful in your plans and purposes;
Take my daily actions, for I give them to those around me, in the simple things of love.
That my life may be a beautiful response of love
To the love I have found in you,
That my life may reflect the very nature of Jesus,
My Lord,
In whose Name I pray,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Numbers 15-17 | Psalm 32