A Prayer About Living Sacrifice

When I need to be totally devoted to God

HOLY SPIRIT,

Paul told believers in Rome to give their bodies to God as a “living and holy sacrifice,” and those words speak to us, too. I know what a sacrifice is, Lord, because the Old Testament is filled with rules and stories about your people offering lambs, bulls, and other animals in sacred ceremonies. But on all those occasions, the animals died, their blood spilled on the altar. I also know that Jesus gave his life as the final sacrifice for sin as he died on the cross. Here, however, I read that you want me to be a living sacrifice. My interpretation is that I should be fully alive to you but dead to sin and totally devoted to your service. I can easily say that I am yours, but so often I don’t act that way. Instead, I go my own way, similar to a lamb that jumps off the altar and runs away. So again, I give you all of me, beginning with my body. I know this is the only way to live. Please transform me into a new person.

Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Romans 12:1