Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

In Romans chapter 12, the Apostle Paul provides true insight into living the Christian life. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, has done an exceptional job of translating this passage into modern words. So here it is for us. This is how we should go about living the Christian life. As you study through these words, let me highlight what I believe are very important points.

“God helping you” You can’t live a Godly life without God’s help. Jesus died because we couldn’t do it ourselves, and we are in continual need of his help as we walk through our daily life.

The second point is related to the first. “Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.” When we become a Christian, God takes over and directs our life. That is if we let him. Too often the pride of man rises up in us, and we find ourselves saying, “Look what I’m doing for God.” It’s not about what we do for God; it’s about what he’s doing in and through us. It is about trusting him and surrendering our will to him.

Chapter 12 of Romans has much more to tell us. For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more of this in-depth passage on living the Christian Life.