Offer Your Body as a Living Sacrifice | Romans 12:1 Devotional + Workout

Devotional

“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.”

To follow up on our last devotional where Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians, I would like to discuss one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. Although Romans is the first book of letters in the Christian Bible, this is not the case chronologically. Paul’s letter to the Romans was actually his fifth letter, which was written during his third missionary journey, in Corinth.

Many consider Romans to be Paul’s most comprehensive work and with that comes a lot to be discussed. For today, I would like to stick with chapter 12 only.

The chapter starts off strong, encouraging the Romans to treat their bodies as a living sacrifice. How often do we sit back and actually consider this?

It’s easy to treat our bodies as something we build for ourselves—strength, appearance, progress. But Paul flips that idea completely.

A “living sacrifice” means the way we train, the way we eat, the way we discipline ourselves—it’s not ultimately for us. It’s an act of worship. This renewal of the mind is something that Paul touches on in Romans 12:2,

“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.”

He immediately follows that statement by emphasizing the importance of humility and recognizing that each of us possesses a unique gift to contribute. Just as different body parts serve distinct functions, we all have our own distinct ways of serving one another.

He goes on to explain what it truly means to be a Christian: loving genuinely, detesting evil, and clinging to what is good.

In summary, he’s saying we should love each other without conditions, even when we’re hurt. The Lord promises to deal with evil, so we don’t have to worry about revenge. Moreover, in Romans 12:20 Paul makes the point that the best response to evil is with love:

“To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.””

If you’ve not read Romans yourself, I would highly encourage that you do. I’ve gained a lot of insight and inspiration from Paul’s marks of the true Christian.

No one will be a perfect Christian, and we must have sober judgement in our own measures of faith. Our bodies are not meant for our own advancement, but as a means of worship and an avenue for serving others.

If our strength begins and ends with us, we’ve missed the point. A body given to God should be used to love and serve others.

Workout

Below is the workout for the day.

Two things to consider when completing this workout:

1. 5x5 bench press is the epitome of strength training. This week of 5x5’s will be the most volume we do in this strength training program, before working back down to singles.

2. Shoulder presses can be done seated or standing. I prefer to do them standing, and encourage that, but I do them seated since my ceiling is too short!

Barbell Bench Press

5 sets of 5 reps

Dips

4 sets of 8 reps

Barbell Shoulder Press

3 sets of 8 reps

Cable Tricep Pushdown

4 sets of 8 reps

Cable Single-Arm Lateral Raise

4 sets of 8 reps