Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, in our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

You know how sometimes you've heard a Bible verse or verses your whole life, but you've never really bothered to pull them apart or define what phrases inside of them mean.

That's the case for the verse I want to look at today

and as we close out this week on dying and living

and this month of shows about the hardest thing God asks us to do.

Think about these two words for just a minute

and we'll get to them just a second, living sacrifice.

What comes to mind when I say that? That's what we're talking about

on the daily today. Romans 12-1 says this, therefore I urge you brothers and sisters in view

of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true and proper worship. I grew up in the

church and my father was a pastor, so of course I've heard this verse so many times. And on some

level, I think I understood that a living sacrifice meant death to myself while I was still alive.

But I don't know that I took much time to explore what a living sacrifice would mean.

Is it to deny my flesh, pursue holiness, live for God?

Well, yes to those things, but I think it's important to get a bit more specific.

What does this look like in our daily lives?

Because it's important to break the Bible down like this so we do more than just get inspired by it.

We really live it.

When we're a living sacrifice, we, number one, don't have a concern about our rights.

Someone who has died no longer has rights.

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