«　WEEK 4　DAY 6　»

　　Rom. 12:1-3 I exhort you therefore, brothers,…to present your bodies a living sacrifice…. 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….For I say… to everyone who is among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to be sober-minded…

　　Bodies in Romans 12:1 is plural and sacrifice is singular…. Although many bodies are presented, they become one sacrifice, implying that, although we are many, our service in the Body of Christ should not be many individual services, separated and unrelated. All our service should constitute one whole service, and this service must be unique because it is the service of the one Body of Christ. (Rom. 12:1, footnote 5)

　　After presenting our body, we need to have our mind renewed. The renewing of the mind, which results from setting the mind on the spirit (Rom. 8:6), is the base for the transformation of our soul. Our mind is the leading part of our soul, and as it is renewed, our will and emotion automatically follow to be renewed also. To be renewed means that a new element is wrought into our being. This produces an inward metabolic transformation, making us suitable for the building up of the Body of Christ, which is the practice of the church life. (Rom. 12:2, footnote 4)

　　After we have presented our body for the church life, it is very easy for us to fall into the opinions of our mind in our soul, which results in our being damaged in the church life; therefore, our soul, and particularly the mind of our soul, needs to be transformed. However, once our mind is transformed, we may easily fall into a negative and dormant state. At that time we must be burning in spirit that we may be stirred up and encouraged to go on in the church life in a positive way. (Rom. 12:11, footnote 1)

　　In Romans 12:3 we come to a very practical point. Everyone of us thinks highly of himself. Outwardly you may appear to be humble, but inwardly you think quite highly of yourself. This is a problem to the church life…. If you think highly of yourself, your mind is not sober or normal. It… needs to be adjusted and renewed.

　　We need to realize that the many members of the one Body have different functions [vv. 4-5]….I hope that so many of the young brothers could say to one another, “Brother, what I can do, you cannot do, and what you can do, I cannot do.”

　　In verse 6 Paul says that we have “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.”…Grace is simply God in Christ as our enjoyment. When this grace, this divine element, which is the divine life, comes into our being, it brings with it certain skills and abilities which are the gifts. The gifts, the spiritual abilities, come from the divine element which we have enjoyed…. [They are] the gifts of grace in life.

　　Romans 5:17 says that “those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life.”…Furthermore, in 5:21 Paul says that “grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” These two verses…prove that grace is related to life. What is grace? It is the divine life for our enjoyment. When the eternal life of God becomes our enjoyment, that is grace. In 1 Corinthians 15:10 Paul says, “I labored more abundantly than all of them, yet not I but the grace of God which is with me.” The grace of God which was with Paul was the divine life within Paul as his enjoyment. Thus, he labored more than the other apostles, although actually it was not Paul himself, but the divine life which he enjoyed. Thus, grace in Romans is a matter of life. (Life-study of Romans, pp. 303-306)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “Crystallization-study of the Complete Salvation of God in Romans,” ch. 5; CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of the Body of Christ,” ch. 4