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. 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. – Romans 12:1-2
If I were to walk into church on a Sunday morning and ask ten people in the congregation to write down their definition of worship, I would get ten different answers. Amazingly, though the Bible talks very much about worship and describes what worship looks like. Worship is really only defined in one place that I can find in the Bible, and that is in Romans 12.
In this passage, Paul tells us that worship is giving all that I am to all that God is. That means you can come to church. You can lift your hands. You can sing at the top of your lungs. You can listen to every word that is preached and take copious notes. You can even drop a dime or a dollar in the offering, but you have not worshipped until you have given all that you are to all that God is.
Over the next couple of days, we’re going to look at how exactly we can give all that we are to all that God is. Today we’ll talk about one step you can take, and tomorrow we’ll talk about two more.
The first step to giving all that you are to God is taking the road of total dedication. If you want to worship the way Scripture instructs us to, you have to be completely dedicated and surrendered to God. True worship is placing all of you – your desires, your wants, your privileges, your rights, your demands, your goals – on the altar of the sacrifice you make every day. Worship is a total sacrifice.
But our problem is that we don’t want to sacrifice ourselves. We want to give God things. We want to give God some of our money. We only want to give God a certain amount of our time. However, you will never ever get to true worship until you understand God is not after your money or your time. God wants you! Jesus didn’t die for your money. He didn’t die for your time. He died for you! To put it simply, what God wants is your complete surrender. Are you willing to surrender to Him by taking the path of total dedication?
Dear Lord, thank you for dying for me so that I can have a relationship with you. Help me to surrender all that I have and all that I am to all that you are. Give me the courage, the strength, and the desire to take the path of total dedication as I follow you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Topics: Worship
