The Power of the Gospel Part 5 - A Living Sacrifice

Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1).

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1-3 NIV).

Then Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).

2. We need to embrace the way of Jesus and become citizens of Heaven.
Do not conform to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2a).

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:22-26).

3. We sacrifice everything we have in this new life so that the Gospel would be shared.

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2b).

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

“Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).

The Blessing: Then you will be able to