Spiritual Service

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Rom. 12:1). 

"You" are to do something with your body. For if you don't, nothing will ever be done with it. "You," the inward man, have become a new man in Christ. "You" have received eternal life. When eternal life - which is the life and nature of God - is imparted to your spirit, it changes "you." 

You won't have any trouble with "you," but you will have trouble with the flesh. People say, "You have to die out to the old self." No, you don't. That old self is dead, and you have a new self in its place. But what you need to die out to is the flesh. 

Isn't the flesh the old self? No, it isn't. Your flesh is the outward man, the body. And it's the same old flesh you had before you were saved! 

Your body is the house you live in, and "you" - not God - are the caretaker of that house. "You" do something with your body. You are to present it to God as "...a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God...." Another translation concludes this verse with the phrase "...which is your spiritual service." 

Confession: I am a new creature in Christ. I hold fast to this confession. And the new man on the inside of me is being manifested on the outside and through the flesh. I dominate my body. I present it to God as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to Him, which is my spiritual service. 

Source: Faith Food Devotions by Kenneth E. Hagin.
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications