Have you ever done the Hokey Pokey? It’s a little song and dance that tells us to put our left arm or right leg or some other body part into the circle, shake it, and then “turn yourself about.” It’s an active and sometimes tiring little exercise that ends with the command, “Put your whole self in …”

  When I think of that song and dance, I’m reminded of another instruction. This one is from the apostle Paul, he writes: “Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). “To present your bodies” is Paul’s way of saying, “Put your whole self in.” The song and dance routine we call worship involves offering our whole person to God. That’s a little harder than doing the Hokey Pokey. *smile*

  Most people do not come into a worship service prepared to give our whole selves over to God. We bring sins that need to be put on the altar before we leave. We bring questions that need answers and problems that need solutions. We bring burdens that need lifted and anxieties that need to be relieved, and frustrations and depression and boredom and preoccupations, all kinds of distractions. Can I tell you something.. for most of us it would be easier to reach in our pocketbooks and double our offering than it would be to turn ourselves over to God.

  But dare I say that we have not worshiped until we have given ourselves to God. Worship is the total commitment of yourself for the rest if your life. Anything less is not real worship.

  Real worship is not merely the offering of fancy worded prayers to God. Neither is it some ‘off the wall’ rituals. Nor is it making large donations or faithfully paying your tithes. Nor is it singing majestic songs of praise, or listening to a long drawn out sermon. Real worship comes from the heart and we offer ourselves completely and with our whole heart to God.

  How can one not give themselves completely and with their whole heart when they enter into the presence of God? Would one not fall at His feet giving Him their all, if they were caught up in His splendor and holiness? Would one not put their whole self in, if they felt the love and power of God Almighty? Would one not fall on their face when they experience the power of the Holy Ghost? I say yes, amen!

  There’s a song that I love..”I Can Only Imagine” sung by a group MercyMe.

I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk
By Your side

I can only imagine
What my eyes will see
When Your face
Is before me
I can only imagine

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for You Jesus or in awe of You be still
Will I stand in Your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine

I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself
Standing before the Son

I can only imagine
When all I will do
Is forever
Forever worship You

  Paul presents God’s mercies as his strongest argument for giving ourselves to God. “I urge you,” Paul said, “by the mercies of God . . . to present your bodies” (Romans 12:1). When we recognize what God has done for us through  Jesus Christ, the only response is to give ourselves completely to Him. Jesus is the grace-giver. The dead-raiser. The faith-healer. The one who saves us.

  That should be motivation enough for us to give our whole lives to God. If reflecting on God’s mercies doesn’t move us, then we are in trouble, part of the walking dead! Where would I be without God’s love and forgiveness? Where would I be without God’s presence in my live? What kind of hope would I have without Him? I would be totally lost with no hope!

  There’s a movie “Tender Mercies”  about a country western song writer and singer who was an alcoholic. He had finally gotten to the place where he couldn’t function. His band members left him drunk in a motel in east Texas. He sobered up and got a job in the motel where they had dropped him. He came to know the love of a godly woman who introduced him to God who revealed Himself to him in a sweet loving way! The movie shows him being baptized in this little east Texas Baptist church. Then you see the wholeness that comes to his life, the recovery of trust in himself and others, and the reclamation of his gifts. They named the movie right, Tender Mercies. The tender mercy of God had rescued him and rebirthed him. He was a new creation.

  While you and I may not write songs, and while our band has not gone off and left us drunk in some motel, the truth is that each of us could have a biography written about ourselves that could be called Tender Mercies. (We all have a past, we all are broken.) And based on the mercy of God, in view of His grace, we give ourselves to God. That is reason enough.

  We offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice…..Paul said “… to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1). The expression “living sacrifice” is set against the backdrop of the Old Testament sacrifices. While the Old Testament worshiper offered an animal, the New Testament worshiper is to offer himself or herself. Just as the people of Israel presented their animal sacrifices to the priests we are to hand over our bodies to Jesus, our High Priest. Out of a heart of thanksgiving for what God has done for us, we give ourselves to Him. When Paul uses the term ‘body’ he is talking bout the whole person. This presentation can be seen in much the same way that a defeated general of an army would hand over his sword, thereby demonstrating the surrender of his whole being.

  In this act of consecration we give not our dead bodies, but rather we make a living sacrifice. A “living sacrifice” sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it?  A living sacrifice is more difficult to give than a dead sacrifice. A living sacrifice means something to us. It has meaningful value. Dead sacrifices have no value. They don’t mean anything to us. Living sacrifices cost us something. Dead sacrifices cost nothing. King David said I will not give to God that which cost me nothing. (2 Samuel 24:24) Giving yourself as a living sacrifice will cost you something! It will cost you everything!

  The story is told of an aged pastor of a little Scottish church. He was asked to resign because there had been no conversions in the church for an entire year.

“Aye,” said the old preacher, “it has been a lean year, but there was one.”

“One conversion?” asked an elder, “Who was it?”

“Wee Bobbie,” replied the pastor.

   They had forgotten a lad who had not only been saved but had given himself in full consecration to God. It was “Wee Bobbie” who, in a missionary meeting when the plate was passed for an offering, asked the usher to put the plate on the floor. He then stepped into it with his bare feet, saying, “I’ll give myself, I have nothing else to give.” Wee Bobbie became the world-renowned Robert Moffatt who, with David Livingstone, gave his life to healing the open sores of the continent of Africa.

  “What does it mean to be a living sacrifice?” asked a woman to her pastor.

  Holding out a blank sheet of paper, the pastor replied, “It is to sign your name at the bottom of this blank sheet, and let God fill it in as He wills.”

That is what Paul had in mind when he instructed the Roman church “to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” That is what Robert Moffatt did. That is what is expected of each worshiper.

  Living implies life. Life is an everyday experience. Offering ourselves to God is not something that should be contained within a sixty-minute worship. A living sacrifice is a sacrifice that is alive, a breathing, living entity. 

  Real worship is the offering of everyday life to God. It never ceases to amaze me that some have developed a kind of selective Christianity that allows them to be deeply and sincerely involved in worship and church activities and yet live like the devil in the day in, day out business of their lives. And what is even sadder is that most never realize that there’s a difference.

  Worship is not just a church activity; it is a ‘life’ activity. Worship is not a sometime thing; it is an all-the-time thing. Worship is not a once-a-week event. A. W. Tozer wrote, “If you will not worship God seven days a week you do not worship Him on one day a week.” Oh, I wish I had a witness!

  Sometimes we mistakenly think that we must always be in a church building to worship. Too often we have sought to protect our spirituality by developing a ghetto mentality and a greenhouse environment.True worship is offering God one’s self, and all that one does every day with it, wherever we might be. I’m me rather you see me Wal Mart or in the church house!

  When we give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice it is reflected in how we live. (You will know them by their fruit,) We live as holy people. People who are distinct, separated from the ways and the evil of this world. We live as uncompromising people. People who are not chameleons, that is, people who do not take its being and likeness from its surroundings. We live as transformed people. People who have been metamorphosed (as a butterfly) on the inside.

  When we give ourselves to God we live, not as self-centered, but a Christ-centered life. The world seeks to pressure our mind from without, but one who has given themselves wholeheartedly to God allows God’s Spirit to release His power from within.

  This happens when Holy Spirit moves into the heart of a person. She becomes a new person; her mind is different, for the mind of Christ is in her. We are to be to Christ as an image is to the original. We should be a mirror of Christ! For example, I don’t do the things Jesus would have done; I find myself wanting to do them but I don’t do them. I don’t go around trying to do right things. I don’t have to try to live the Christian life because I have Someone living in me that lives it through me.  Hallelujah! 

Conclusion:
  Are you ready to put your whole self into the hands of God? Are you ready to commit your all to Jesus? Are you ready to be a living sacrifice unto Him? James Martineau said, “Worship is the free offering of ourselves to God; ever renewed, because ever imperfect. It expresses the consciousness that we are His by right, yet we have not duly passed into His hand.” Or as I heard someone say, “Commitment is the giving of all one knows of himself to all one knows of God.” Anything less than total commitment is unacceptable to God.

  Jesus has always demanded one’s all in following Him. He never made an exception. If He ever did, it would have been the time a rich young man came to follow Jesus. Outwardly the man had all the trappings that would make for a great follower. Inwardly, however, he was holding back. Jesus recognized that. (Mark 10:17-31) He will not accept a partial commitment. He didn’t then; He doesn’t now.

  In His love

Elizabeth