Today's Word - The Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's Mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - This is your spiritual act of worship. 

When sacrificing an animal according to God's law, a priest would kill the animal, cut it in pieces, and place it on the alter. sacrifice was important, but even in the Old Testament God made it clear that obedience from the heart was much more important (1 Samuel 15:22, Psalms 40:6, Amos 5 21-24). God want us to offer ourselves, not animals, as Living Sacrifices - daily laying aside our own desires to follow him, putting all our energy and resources at his disposal and trusting him to guide us. We do this out of gratitude that our sins have been forgotten..