Sunday on Monday - August 24th, 2026
On Sunday, we returned to Romans and looked at two familiar verses: Romans 12:1–2.
Paul begins with an important word: “therefore.” He is pointing us back to everything he has said about the mercy of God. The Christian life does not begin with what we do for God, but with what God has already done for us in Christ.
Paul writes, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” This is not a one-time dramatic decision. It is our daily posture. The Message paraphrase of the Bible captures this well: “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Paul then tells us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Something is always shaping us. The question is what.
What we repeatedly give ourselves to eventually forms who we become. God’s Word, prayer, worship, obedience, gathering with the church, and life in Christian community reshape our loves and our thinking over time. But if those things are absent, the world will gladly shape us instead.
The world offers its version of the “good life,” but God’s will is described as good, pleasing, and perfect.
When we truly understand God’s mercy, surrender is not God taking life away from us. It is God leading us into the life we were made for.
A life shaped by mercy. A life like Jesus lived.
