This is one of the most frequent questions Christians ask. How many sermons, books, websites, blogs and, yes, calendar texts, try to answer it, and yet God’s answer, in a nutshell, is in the first two verses of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It takes the form of an appeal founded on the pitying love of God which suffuses the way of salvation Paul has expounded in the preceding part of the letter. Does it move us that God is for us, indeed has proven it by not sparing His own Son but delivering Him up for us all (Rom. 8:31–32)?

Having a real sense of this in our souls, the next step is straightforward: we should present our bodies—all that we are practically—as a living sacrifice. If the Lord Jesus—on whom death had no claim—died for us, we should yield our lives—on which He has every claim—sacrificially to Him.

The word “present” is in the Greek aorist tense: something done once which remains true thereafter. Think of the offerer in the Old Testament; he could not take back his sacrifice once it was on the altar. So for us there is no option to resign or retire once we have presented our bodies to God; it is a life-long commitment of which our Savior and Lord is eminently worthy.

Of course, we cannot do this in a careless way, like the people at the end of the Old Testament who offered God the blind and the lame and the sick (Mal. 1:8). Our service must be according to His holy nature and with the sole object of pleasing Him. And this is not optional: it is the “reasonable”—indeed logical—way for all Christians to live if they truly want to know and to do His will. What a challenge for us all.