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06 May 2004
How Do We Offer Our Bodies
As Living Sacrifices?
Question: What is the reason some people don't experience many faith victories in
their lives?
The reasion is that they are not fulfilling their call.
They aren't finding what God wants them to do.
They aren't pursuing Him to discover what His absolute perfect will is for their lives.
I am personally so hungry to know God's perfect will for my life that I'll do whatever is
necessary to attain that goal.
I want to know to the "nth degree" what Jesus has called me to do.
I want to know for what purpose I was born, and what anointings are available to me.
So in my search, the question for me was not whether I would offer my body as a living
sacrifice.
I was too hungry for God to turn down my request.
Question: How I can find out how to offer my body as a living sacrifice?
If so, somebody please tell me how and then turn me loose!
Show me how I can walk all the way into God.
Show me how to receive the best God has for me.
Just give me my day in court.
Then if I fail, it won't be because someone else took my victory away from me.
Well, I kept on searching and studying for the answer to my question.
Now I have read Romans 12:1, over and over and over again.
Notice that in Romans 12:1, it says, I beseech you THEREFORE, brethren, by the
mercies of God....
The word "therefore" means "Based on what I've already said."
Paul is saying, "Use the information I taught you in the previous chapters to go on and
offer your body so you can find the perfect will of God."
Let's start at Romans 8:1:
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
That word "condemnation" is being used in the same way we say a criminal is
condemned to die.
So Jesus has given me a promise through Paul's teachings.
He has delivered me from every condemning sentence against me.
Whether of the flesh, the devil, the world, sickness, pain, poverty, or disease.
None of these hell-inspired things can be carried out in me anymore.
That is if I meet one condition:
I must walk after the spirit and not after the flesh.
Paul is actually speaking of walking according to the new nature.
The reborn human spirit we received when we were born again.
The Holy Spirit has been sent to teach our reborn human spirit all truth:
John 16:13
"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall
not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will
shew you things to come."
The Holy Spirit teaches my reborn human spirit that I am no longer under the
condemning sentences of sin, sickness, and poverty.
I no longer have to walk as an unregenerate man in the flesh.
I am to walk after my reborn human spirit.
As I am taught and led by the Holy Spirit.
The devil condemned me to die in my sins so that for all eternity, hell would be my
home.
But Jesus stepped into my shoes and took my place.
He took that condemning sentence unto Himself.
Now because Jesus was condemned, I can go free.
He was made to be sin for me that I might be made the righteousness of God in Christ
(2 Cor. 5:21).
I was condemned to die under the penalty of every damnable disease known to
mankind.
But Jesus Christ stepped into my shoes as my Substitute.
He bore my sicknesses and carried my pains (Matt. 8:17).
Dying under the condemning sentence of my diseases.
Now as long as I walk after the Spirit, that condemning sentence can no longer be
carried out in me.
I was condemned to die in poverty.
But Jesus Himself by the grace of God took the condemning sentence of poverty upon
Himself.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich (2 Cor. 8:9).
That condemning sentence can no longer be carried out in me.
I must learn to walk after the Spirit and not by the dictates of the flesh.
So we who are born again have a promise.
All condemning sentences by the flesh, the devil, or the world are canceled if we walk
not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
How To Walk After the Spirit
That brings me to this question: How do I walk after the Spirit?
Paul wouldn't make the statement he did in Romans 8:1,
Without telling me how to leave behind the walk of the flesh.
And begin to walk after the Spirit.
Notice in verse 13, he says, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die:
But if ye THROUGH THE SPIRIT do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
So now Paul is telling me that to walk after the Spirit,
I must somehow put to death, the deeds of the body,
Through the power of my reborn spirit as it is edified and built up by the Holy Spirit.
This is starting to sound like Romans 12:1.
There it tells me to offer my body as a living sacrifice.
Romans 8:13, it tells me that I can't do it through will power.
What is will power – the energy of the flesh;
To offer my body as a living sacrifice, it has to be through the Spirit.
Question: How do I release the Holy Spirit to edify and build up my reborn human
spirit?
How do I kill the deeds of the flesh and offer my body as a living sacrifice so I can find
God's perfect will for my life?
The Holy Spirit Helps Our Infirmities – Through Prayer
To find the answer to that question, go down to verse 26.
Paul is still dividing between a walk of the Spirit and a walk in the flesh.
But now he's going to tell us how to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.
Romans 8:26
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for
as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot
be uttered.
In other words, he is saying, "This is how the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities, or our
weaknesses."
The word "infirmities" refers to our inability to produce results.
Because of the limitations imposed on us by our flesh.
So the Holy Spirit was sent to help us in our inability to produce results in our own
strength.
Suppose I have a incurable disease which brings death.
I can't get the disease out of my body, and it's in the process of killing me.
That is an infirmity.
Or suppose poverty tracks me down and cancels out anything I'm doing for the Kingdom
of God.
It brings my forward progress to a standstill.
And there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.
That, too, is an infirmity.
But, thank God, the Bible promises that "likewise the Spirit helpeth mine infirmities".
My inability to produce results because of the limitations imposed on me by the flesh!
Question: What is your infirmity, your weakness?
Is it anger? No love for people? Do you scream at your wife at home?
Whatever it is, the Holy Spirit has been sent to help your weaknesses.
He's going to show you how to destroy the deeds of the flesh.
The Holy Ghost knows how ignorant we are.
He knows we don't know how to pray as we ought.
He knows we really need to have our soul bypassed when it is being whipped by the
devil.
So, thank God, He bypasses our soul and the fight the devil wages with it.
And He brings an entire language of edification with Him.
It is an awesome language, and the Holy Spirit uses it to express not only the mystery
of what Christ is in us.
The Holy Spirit proclames the call of God that we cannot fulfill in our own strength.
He steps in with groanings that cannot be uttered and makes intercession for us
according to the will of God.
The Mind of the Spirit
Now look at verse 27 to see what the Holy Spirit is doing to help us in our infirmities:
"And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God."
Notice it says that the Holy Spirit searches the hearts, plural.
That means the Holy Spirit has the power to search the hearts of the entire Body of
Christ.
The Holy Spirit represents each person before the Father's throne, all at the same time.
This ability is what makes Him God.
As the Holy Spirit goes into my heart to search it.
He already knows something very important: the mind of the Spirit.
That's why He can make intercession according to the will of God as He searches my
heart.
Question: "What does it mean when it says, 'the Holy Spirit knows the mind of the
Spirit'?"
In Romans 8:22, Paul says that all creation was subjected to the fall of man.
We are in hope of a new Heaven and a new earth to come.
That we who have been born again and filled with the Holy Ghost also groan in our
spirits.
Longing for the glorification of our bodies and of the Church (v. 23).
He who searches the hearts knows what God's mind is for your generation, for your
church, and for your life within that great plan.
He knows what God called and predestined you to do before the foundation of the
world.
That is what enables the Holy Spirit to be your Representative, your Champion.
He makes intercession for you according to the will of God.
Dale Boehs
06 May 2004
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