Romans 12:1-2 says, “I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.” These verses first mention our bodies (v. 1) and then our mind in the soul (v. 2). Verse 11 goes on to speak about our spirit within. First we have to present our body. Then when we come to the church, our mind needs to be transformed through renewing. Our thinking needs to be changed, and our old mind needs to be renewed. Then we need to be burning in spirit, serving the Lord.
Today people all over the world are very busy. In a sense, no one is free. Even beggars and idle people are very busy. However, we who love the Lord, in the midst of our busy lives, must present our bodies to the Lord and place ourselves in the church life. It is not enough to merely say that we have consecrated ourselves. We must practically present our bodies. We may spend about an hour traveling to and from the meeting each way and an hour in the meeting. These three hours we spend for the meeting are consecrated to the Lord. We need to pray to consecrate every meeting to the Lord.
Secular people are busy in the worldly things, but Christians should be busy in prayer. No matter how busy people are, they still have time to talk. They can spend a whole day talking on the phone. Once they start talking, they can talk for half an hour or an hour. If we would use the time that we spend on the phone to pray, we would have much time. To pray is to present our bodies. This is a battle. To make a phone call does not require any effort, but to pray requires much strength. We do not feel tired when we make a phone call, but once we begin to pray, we feel tired. Satan has many ways to keep us from praying. When we are not praying, no one comes to visit us. But once we kneel down to pray for five minutes, someone comes knocking on our door. Sometimes it may even be someone knocking on the wrong door. Once we are interrupted, we are unable to pray anymore, and it takes much effort to turn back to the spirit.
The fact that prayer is a battle shows us that presenting our bodies is also truly a battle. For us to waste things such as our money, time, and energy is very easy and does not require any effort. But when we want to accomplish something serious, we need to spend much effort and work hard. Children need to work hard and to set aside a time to study from 7 to 10 P.M., presenting their bodies to study for three hours. But if they gossip and talk, they will not work hard. We need to fight in order to present our bodies to meet and pray.
On the one hand, we need to present our bodies for the church life. On the other hand, there are still many old thoughts in our mind. We may be from the east, the west, the north, or the south, and we may have our own distinctions, customs, and regulations. However, the Lord has gathered us together in Christ, so we should not have any distinctions. Hence, our mind needs to be transformed by the renewing. In 1962 when I first went to America to begin the work there, the first two years I traveled all over the United States. The people there often said that I did not seem like a Chinese person because I ate what they ate and drank what they drank. Even though I did not like coffee, because they drank coffee, I also drank a little. We all love the Lord and are living in the church life, but we all have different dispositions. Eventually, our opinions and concepts may come out, causing many differences and problems among us. Therefore, we need our concepts to be changed. We need to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.
Very often we present our bodies and have some renewing and transformation in our mind, but our spirit is very cold, not burning. We do not pray, read the Bible, preach the gospel, or take care of people. It seems as if we do not want to do anything. This is abnormal. A normal Christian should possess three things: a presented body, a renewed and transformed mind, and a burning spirit. If we are not burning in our spirit, we will not pray or open our mouths when we come to the meeting. In the end, we will let the “shepherds” among us pray and speak for everyone. However, if we all are burning in spirit, then when you pray, I will also pray. Everyone will function, not wanting to be left behind, and the meeting will be sweet and rich. Thus, we all need to present our bodies, be renewed and transformed in our mind, and be burning in our spirit.
The most difficult matter in us is our mind. When there is a problem in the church, it usually comes from our mind. If we did not love the Lord and came to the meetings only once a year, there would be no problems in the church. But when we are raised up to love the Lord, to present our bodies, and to meet daily, we have more and more opinions. One day we may say that the chair arrangement is not right, and the next day we may say that the curtains were not hung properly. It may seem to us that there are many things that are wrong. Before we did not come to clean, but once we come we begin to have many ideas. We may think that the rags are not right because we should not use damp rags or that the brooms are not right because we should not use hard brooms. We were peaceful when we were not knocking on doors, but once we go out to knock on doors, we have no peace. We may say that our partners walk too fast or that they ring the doorbell for too long. All of our opinions come out. When we did not love the Lord, there were no problems because we stayed at home. However, once we begin to love the Lord, it seems that everyone is wrong and only we ourselves are right. Our mind is very hard to deal with. We need the Lord to be merciful to us, to grant us sufficient grace, to renew and transform us, and to make us burning in spirit.