Daily Devotionals: Ascent’s Mission – Loving God, Loving People and Impacting Our World. Each day’s devotional will guide us through a scriptural thought based on the mission God has called us to follow. 

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Engage the Word: Loving God

Read Romans 12:1

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. (NLT)

Connect the Heart

As we come together today to respond to God in corporate worship, we reflect on one of the key verses in all of the New Testament regarding worship. Ultimately, the degree to which we love God is most reflected in how we respond to Him – and our response to God IS our worship. We respond with all that we are to all God has revealed Himself to be. Yet, we too often equate worship only with singing. The Apostle Paul provides the biblical perspective. There is no mention of music or song in Romans 12:1. Though singing a song together provides a way for a body of believers to have a common language with which to express their worship and praise to God, a song is only one small part of our response to God.

Our response to God in worship –  an expression of our love for Him – is offering Him our very lives. Our worship of God cannot be separated from what we think, feel and do.

Prior to Christ’s death on the cross on our behalf, a believer’s act of worship required bringing an animal sacrifice to the temple in Jerusalem to be offered to God, with a priest performing the sacrifice as an intermediary. The death of Jesus Christ, our perfect and spotless lamb, fulfilled the need for a blood sacrifice once for all (1 Peter 3:18). Worship now requires no temple, no priest and no animal sacrifice. Jesus fulfills all of these past requirements. In this verse, Paul is declaring that rather than bringing an animal to be killed as a substitute – our life is a LIVING sacrifice. Our life is our worship. How we live matters – and how we live reflects and expresses our love for God.

Reflect on the Truth

1. How does Romans 12:1 inform how you think about worship?
2. If our worship cannot be separated from what we think, feel and do – how does your life of worship reflect your love for God?
3. Think for a few moments about who God has revealed Himself to be (in Scripture, in nature, in Christ…). How might you respond to Him in worship – not only with your songs and prayers, but with your very life – as a living sacrifice?

Depend on the Spirit

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see the deeper longings, desires or motives in your heart that these thoughts are pointing to. (For example: you may write down, “Father, I want to love you fully and respond to you in worship in a way that honors you as my Lord. By your Spirit, please guide me and direct me.”) The Lord can help us discern the path forward – through His word, His Spirit, His people.

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For Prayer
As you conclude your devotional time, pray that our church family would grow more and more in a real, biblical and God-honoring view of worship. Pray that our practice of loving God would bear fruit in transformed lives of worship – not just how we sing, but how we live.

Fasting
Please read the first blog post entitled “Why Fast?” This explains what fasting is and why we follow Jesus in this spiritual discipline as together we seek the heart of God.

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 Some parts of our 21 Days devotionals are adapted using various resources on scripture and prayer like The Bible Exposition Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, The New Bible Commentary, Logos Bible Software and other resources.