Day 64: MIND RENEWAL - PT. 2 (start)

Ever try to read through the Bible by starting at the beginning? How far did you get?


If you’re like most people, myself included, you didn’t make it very far. Maybe mostly through Genesis? A little bit of Exodus?


By the time you got to Leviticus & Numbers, forget it.


However, I had a goal of working through all the books of the Bible that had previously been challenging to me.


My big take away, a lot of animals get slaughtered in attempting to make peace with God. Old Testament priests HAD to have looked more like butchers than clergy.[1]


The point that God was making with His people though, with us quite frankly, is that blood must be spilled to satisfy His law. If we sin, which is common to all of us, a death sacrifice, a blood sacrifice, must be made.


Just look through Leviticus & Numbers about the sacrifices and see for yourself.


And that mentality of offering a death sacrifice was still prevalent when Paul was writing Romans. Regardless of your religion of that day, you understood that “The God ‘Up There’” required blood from ‘Down Here’ to be happy.


That’s why the message of Jesus was so revolutionary. He made the blood sacrifice so we don’t have to.


So Paul uses that language in these short two verses to help make his point about what we ARE supposed to do.


If not a death sacrifice, then what?


. . . a LIFE sacrifice . . . a LIVING sacrifice.

 


What Paul is saying is that you don’t have to sacrifice your life, Jesus already did that. But you do need to sacrifice your alive self so that you are ‘holy and acceptable’.


That means your sinful desires, your lustful thoughts, your sexualized inclinations, your selfish intent.


That also means your short fuse, your greedy nature, your desires for gossip, your deceit.

 

That’s your job.

That’s your part in all this.

 

And guess what . . . God is merciful & gracious as you do this.

AND . . . Paul lines out the key to it all . . . the RENEWING OF YOUR MIND!

 


So today, go for a walk when temptation hits.


Get outside and move when you want to pick up your phone and click on something you shouldn’t.


Cut the grass instead of sitting in the recliner to watch a movie.


Call a Barnabas to check in.


Call a Timothy.

 


Do SOMETHING to reset your mind . . . to renew it.

And you will be TRANSFORMED.

 


Thoughts to Pray/Journal:

  • In what ways does the idea of a living sacrifice change the way you view your relationship with God?
  • What do you need to sacrifice today?

 

Reading:

Romans 12:1-2 – memorize it





[1] But all the OT people were here first so maybe we’re misidentifying clergy & butchers . . . hmm . . . mind melt.