Romans 12:1–8
A Living Sacrifice
12:1 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.
Gifts of Grace
3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
(ESV)
The Ultimate Sacrifice
When I think about the birth of Christ, I think about how much of a sacrifice it was for Him to
step down into our world and into our brokenness. The idea of Jesus trading heaven to come
down to live on earth in order for us to have an eternity with God is truly sacrificial. As we know,
His sacrifice didn’t just stop there. We know the story of Jesus coming down from heaven, being
born in a manger, and growing up, fully man and fully God. He felt and experienced the same
things we feel in the year 2025 in Chicago. He felt hunger, cold, and pain, experienced loss,
betrayal, and ultimately—he endured death.
In the Old Testament, sacrifices were common and known as the act of slaughtering an
animal as an offering to God to express worship, atone for sin, or to give thanks. The crucifixion
of Jesus, His death and resurrection, paint this picture of the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus came down
from heaven, stepped into our brokenness, and paid the ultimate price in order for us to have a
relationship with God. He became the ultimate sacrifice. He endured pain and suffering for us,
He sacrificed everything for us and it cost Him His life.
When the apostle Paul writes in Romans, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice,” he
encourages believers to look at what Jesus did for us. To see the sacrifice that He made. In the
same way, we ought to live our lives as a sacrifice for the one who sacrificed it all for us. This
Advent, my prayer is that we would reflect on the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, and that the
love we experienced from Him, would empower us to live sacrificially for Him.
Liza Martinez