Motivational Mercy
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. 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. ROMANS 12:1-2
What a calling we receive here in the beginning of Romans 12. Let’s look at it backwards.
First we have a promise that there IS something that is good, acceptable and perfect, which is what we all strive for as believers in Christ, and that is the ability to discern what is the will of God. How do we know His will? We often seek God’s will in life’s big decisions, but as Paul Tripp says, if God doesn’t rule your mundane, then He doesn’t rule you. We live in the mundane, not the life-altering moments we think of associating with seeking God’s will. A desire to know and do His will in every facet of our life should trickle from those big decisions all the way down to the hundreds of minuscule, daily, seemingly trivial activities and thoughts we fill our lives with. These are the things that constitute our being. These are where battles of grand significance are won and lost. This is where we should be striving to know God’s will.
So how do we know God’s will? These verses promise us its by the renewal of our mind through the Scriptures. Psalm 119:9-11
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
If we read Scripture without thinking about God, it is of no value to us. Its valuable because of who wrote it, and its this dependence upon, saturation of, and meditation on God’s character, attributes, precepts and commandments that refreshes our soul and separates us from the world. This is how we prohibit world conformity. This is how we battle fleshly desires. The manifestation of God’s glory through His son Christ, and the great plan of redemption set in motion from before time and performed on the cross, is the focal point of all Scripture. This alone offers freedom from sin and hope in righteousness. Christ-o-centric reading and obedient living is the only way to ultimate, lasting transformation.
Worship constitutes a living sacrifice. We see here that in order for your life to be acceptable to God, a LIVING sacrifice, striving for holiness, is required. Because our sacrifice must be living, it must include the totality of our being – all our wants, desires, toilings and strivings are to be included in this submission to God and His word. Our life’s greatest ambition should be conformity to Christ, which is precluded by separation from sin and worldliness. This is sanctification. Herein lies our ultimate good and greatest joy.
And finally, the precursor to all this: mercy. God’s mercy. Its only because of this, and through this communicable attribute of our God, that we can move on to living sacrificially, striving for holiness, worshiping, conforming, being transformed, discerning what God’s will is and ultimately knowing what is good, acceptable, and perfect. And it is only because of the righteous life and the atoning death of Christ that we are made able to partake of this life-giving mercy. If we attempt the Christian walk, this hungering for righteousness and goodness, apart from a right view of God’s mercy on our wicked hearts every second of every day, then we will soon wander either down the path of despair or the path of self-righteousness. Only in the cross of Christ can we stand between those two chasms in perfect peace.
By the mercies of God, we can do these things which we are called to. Apart from a right view of man lost in sin and saved by grace through faith in the redemptive plan of the Son of God, living is futile. But inside this grace, life abounds. Mercy reigns, and so we strain forward, full of joy.
