Grace to Love Exhortation

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.”

“Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. . . . Then I said, “Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God.”’” Heb. 10:5-7.

The body must be sacrificed if we are to do God’s will. If we use the body to seek honor, we have not sacrificed it, even if we do ever so much good. 1 Cor. 13:1-4. If we are to serve God, we must live in love, and then the body must also be sacrificed. That is our spiritual service.

Paul received grace and apostleship to bring about obedience to the faith among all nations, to the honor of His name. Rom. 1:5. There are many missionaries and preachers who speak enthusiastically about believing in God—and about receiving forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ blood. However, they do not make them His disciples, and they do not teach them to observe all things that He has commanded them.

They speak a great deal about God’s power to heal and to perform signs and wonders if they only believe, but they do not speak about obedience, as Jesus did. John 8:31-36; Luke 14:25-27; Heb. 5:8-10.

We see that many religious movements arise in which they speak about God’s love for people and about believing in Him, but they do not speak about obedience. They are false workers who speak perverse things and draw away the disciples after themselves. But they should consider how Paul conducted himself and walked among them. Acts 20:28-38. If they looked at him who for three years did not cease, night or day, to exhort each and every one with tears, it would be easy to understand who was a wolf, speaking perverse things and wanting to draw away the disciples after himself!