Having outlined all that God has done for us in Christ, Paul now turns to the application of these things. How should we respond? What does God want from us? The answer is simple: God wants you. He wants you to offer yourself to him. This is what pleases God the most because he loves you and wants you to join yourself to him as two people are joined with one another in marriage. Paul says that we should do this “in view of God’s mercy”. This is the key. The more you appreciate God’s mercy the more compelled you will feel to give yourself over to God. God does not force us to come to him. He wants us to make a free choice because he wants to have a real loving relationship with us. So, he calls us, beckons us to come to him. He opened the way in Christ, at infinite cost, and draws us in by his love and kindness. As Paul has said in 2:4, “God’s kindness leads you toward repentance”. Worship is our response to God’s kindness. It involves us giving ourselves over to God. It is not just singing songs to God. Singing worship songs can be an expression of worship but it is not genuine if it does not come from a heart that is moving toward God. Worship is the prodigal son offering himself as a servant to his father and being received as a son (Luke 15). That is the kind of offering that God wants.
Are you willing to offer yourself to God? Ask God to take a hold of you and draw you closer to him.
Read and reflect on Romans 12:1
