Faith Bible Study Guide
ROMANS 12:1,2
1 1 beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
There is something in these verses of Scripture that astounded me when I saw it. I had been preaching for about twenty years when I first saw this, and it came as a shock to me. Here Paul is writing a letter to the Roman Christians. He wasn’t writing to sinners. He wrote in Romans chapter 1, “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be SAINTS. ..” (Rom. 1:7).
He is writing to men and women who have been born again and filled with the Holy Ghost. And yet he says that Christians need to do something with their own bodies and their minds. That really came as a shock to me that here were people who were saved and filled with the Holy Ghost, yet their bodies and minds hadn’t been affected. Can you see that?
So, you see, the new birth is not a rebirth of the human body or the mind, but it is a rebirth of the human spirit. And the infilling of the Holy Ghost is not a physical experience or a mental experience, but it is a spiritual experience. Because your body was not born again in the new birth, you will have to do something with your body. You will have to present it to God as a living sacrifice. And you will have to do something with your mind. You will have to get your mind renewed with the Word. This is something that you do, not God. God gives you eternal life; God offers you His spirit; but God doesn’t do anything with your body. If anything is done with it, you will have to do it.
Someone said, “But I can’t.” As long as you take sides against God and against His Word and you say you can’t, then of course, you won’t be able to do anything. But the Bible says that you are to present your body unto God (Rom. 12:1). That means you can do it. In fact, no one else can do it for you. You present your own body unto God. Then the Bible says, “… be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. ..” (Rom.12:2). Our minds are to be renewed with the Word of God. That comes through reading and meditating on the Word. But, God also put teachers in the Church to teach people the truth and help people renew their minds. I dare say that your minds have begun to be renewed through these lessons. Have you become conscious of the fact that you are really a spirit, that you have a soul, and that you live in a body?