The apostle Paul set a high standard for the way Christians go about our daily lives. Our “appropriate service” to God, he wrote to the Christians in Rome, is to offer ourselves as a “living sacrifice.” It was true in his day, as in ours, that that approach to life was not a part of the culture’s “common sense.” To live it out would take inner transformation, not conformity to the world’s values and practices.

• In the ancient world, most people had made a sacrifice to some god. That usually meant killing an animal in the right temple or shrine. If that were your background, how would you need to shift your thinking and acting to respond to Paul’s call to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice”? In what ways are you willing to put yourself, your life, “on the altar” to live daily for God?
• Sooner or later, when we let God transform us we ourselves become agents of transformation. In our homes, schools, neighborhoods or workplaces, we begin to see things that aren’t quite as they should be. What steps, large or small, have you taken to transform attitudes or practices in your settings? Where might you have the chance now to transform things for the better?