I will give you rest

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 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”   [Romans 12:1-2]

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"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him"

Paul mentions here that we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Our bodies stand for all our members and, by extension, our entire lives.  Total commitment is our reasonable service. It is our reasonable service in this sense: if the Son of God has died for me, then the least I can do is live for Him. “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me,” said the great British cricketer and missionary C. T. Studd,  “then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.”

Reasonable service may also be translated “spiritual worship.” As believer-priests, we do not come to God with the bodies of slain animals as sacrifice but with the spiritual sacrifice of yielded lives. We also offer to Him our service, and our possessions.

Paul also urges us not to be conformed to this world. In other words, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” When we come to the kingdom of God, we should abandon the thought-patterns and lifestyles of the world. The world means the society or system that man has built in order to make himself happy without God. It is a kingdom that is antagonistic to God. The god and price of this world is Satan. All unconverted people are his subjects. He seeks to attract and hold people through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. The world hates nonconformists—like Christ and His followers.

Christ died to deliver us from this world. The world is crucified to us, and we are crucified to the world. It would be absolute disloyalty to the Lord for believers to love the world. Anyone who loves the world is an enemy of God.  We should be transformed by the renewing of our mind, which means that we should think the way God thinks, as revealed in the Bible.
 

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Come to me and I will give you rest

   

..I will give you rest

 “If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest. This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light.  ”  [Matthew 11:28-30]

 "Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."