Living Sacrifices

In Romans 12:1 the Apostle Paul writes: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true and proper worship.

I feel that the Holy Spirit spoke multiple things to me last night at my weekly Community Group (Bible Study) that I attend. Sure, the Holy Spirit is probably constantly speaking to us but I don't think we're always listening in a way that we could. We weren't even focusing on this chapter but rather a section of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Anyway, I put the verse above up there for a reason. For a large portion of my true Christian life I have heard the phrase "to live our lives as living sacrifices" and for whatever reason it seems to have really set in last night. I haven't really known how exactly to do this but I now have a better understanding.

I think of it as there are times when I want to do things to bring temporary enjoyment or satisfaction to myself. Living my life as a living sacrifice means that in these times I am not to give into these selfish desires. A life that is a living sacrifice is a life where we give up immediate comfort, happiness, or any other type of acceptance so that we might receive it later. We give these up to show that we are not of this world. We live in it but are not of it. We give these things up because they are of little to no importance to us. What is much more important are the souls of those around us. We should long for those around us to be filled with a passion for our Lord, Savior, and Friend Jesus Christ. We should long for people to know the One, True God, and that He calls us friends, even through all that we've done and will do. All these other things are so temporary, they do not merit near as much attention as we let them. So I pray that we can learn to "offer our bodies as...living sacrifice[s], holy and pleasing to God". After all, this is our reasonable act of worship.