Good morning with every blessing of the Lord, joy, peace and good health. Welcome to my brief early morning message of this campaign of prayer and devotion, which started on the 1st of February.
Today, 5th Feb 2021 is the 3rd brief message to broadcast in the early morning hours, as the Lord is calling us to draw near for prayer and devotion. Two days ago we said that the power of sacrifice releases into our lives the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead, and yesterday we spoke about the power of sacrifice for sanctification.
Today we remember that the sacrifice of our carnality on “the altar of burnt offerings”, delivers us, or, sets us free from the bondage of our own flesh, where the Law of Sin is at work in our members. But what does that mean practically for a Christian? Ap. Paul said:
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, [which is] your reasonable service.
If you do not understand what “reasonable service” really means, do not worry, neither do I. What Paul really wrote was that when we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, that is the kind of worship that God understands, it is a worship that makes sense to God; the kind that He expects of us.
(and we continue to verse) 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what [is] that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Earlier in the epistle, Ap. Paul wrote: Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but [how] to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will [to do,] I do not do; but the evil I will not [to do,] that I practice.
He then continues to express the agony of his fight against his own carnality:
Romans 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
The answer is in the power of the sacrifice that breaks the bondage of the flesh by which the Law of Sin keeps us bound. When we offer our own flesh as a living sacrifice to the Lord, by confessing our sins and repenting, the flames of His Holiness consume the power of sin that is in our members.
When we worship Him by offering our bodies as a living sacrifice, the supernatural power of His Holiness causes an inward transformation by which we receive the power to resist sin, so that we overcome the power of sin, as we become increasingly transformed in His own image and likeness.
The confession of our sins is our sacrifice that makes sense to the Lord, which He receives as worship from us. His power is then released from within to transform us so that we look more and more like Him.