Worship: Bodies, Our Spiritual Act of Worship| February 17, 2023

I don’t know about you, but when I am overwhelmed by the goodness of God, my response is worship. My whole body from the inside out. How I feel, how I behave toward others. The joy spills out. Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2: 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 

I love how the Message (MSG) paraphrase translates this for us: 

 ^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

* * * * *

It's because of God’s mercy to us, His grace and the free gift of salvation through Christ, that we can now respond in worship! The Greek word for worship in this passage means service.

Earlier in January, Buffalo Bills football player, Damar Hamlin, collapsed on the field from cardiac arrest, and his athletic trainer, Denny Kellington, used CPR to save his life. As a Christ follower, here is what Damar had to say:  

“Sudden cardiac arrest is something I never would have chosen to be a part of my story, but that’s because our own visions are too small even when we think we see the whole picture. My vision was about playing in the NFL and being the best player I could be, but God’s plan was to have a purpose greater than any game in this world.”

Last Tuesday, he launched a campaign in partnership with the American Heart Association, to increase CPR awareness and education, the Three for Heart CPR Challenge.

Damar is using his platform to not only encourage others to learn CPR, but more importantly, he’s using his life to glorify God. God has given him a second chance at life; through Damar’s grateful response to God’s mercies, God is being glorified through his spiritual act of worship, service.  

 We may not have Damar’s dramatic story, but we are recipients of God’s mercy every day. We just need to look. What might it look like for you to use your body as a “spiritual act of worship”? To serve God as a response to His incredible mercy in your life?