Romans 6:13b

...but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  Romans 6:13b ESV

We have been looking at the commands God gives us in verse 13, and how they relate to the command in verse 12. From the last blog:

" So - the command here has to do with what we are doing with our body as God's children. Keep in mind the context here...Paul started this chapter by asking how any child of God could possibly think it's alright to live in a life of sinfulness. The command we read here also stems from a command giving right before it, in verse 12: 

 Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.  

What is Paul doing by stacking up these commands? (and there is one more to come at the end of verse 13) - Not only is Paul driving home the importance of repentance, the turning away from sin, but Paul is also using verse 13 as instructions on how to obey the command in verse 12! We have no excuse now...look at it: 

  

vs 12: Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 

Paul...how do we make sure we are defeating sin in our lives, not allowing it control?

vs 13a: Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness

(and Paul goes even further in this verse, which we will cover later) 

vs 13b: present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. "
 

We see that if we focus on the decision we make concerning the members of our body, we will be experiencing the power of God in our lives which includes power over sin, and is in obedience to verse 12. As we focused on the first part of verse 13 in the last post, we looked at how we should approach this command, the seriousness of this command, and what the motivation for our obedience to this command should be. 

As he began verse 1, Paul told us - don't allow your body to be a part of sinful things. The question comes up then: do we occupy ourselves with not sinning? Absolutely not - or as Paul might say - by no means! Not only are we to be in control of our members by keeping them from sin, but we are to be giving ourselves entirely to God, for His service. Let's break down how Paul explained it. 

but present yourselves to God 

Paul doesn't jump right in talking about our members here, but talking about our entire being. Our focus, as God's children, should be giving ourselves over to Him entirely - starting with the heart and mind. As lost souls, our heart and mind (as Paul described in the first chapter of Romans) were satisfied with the lusts of the flesh, which were in gross opposition to God. Now, God is commanding us to present these inner parts of our being to Him as His children. 

What should be our motivation for doing this? 

as those who have been brought from death to life

Our motivation is everything that Paul talked about in the first part of chapter 6 - that he sums up here. We are to present our entire self to God, starting with our heart and mind, because God renewed both our heart and our mind by bringing us from death to life.

As humans, when we see these things described as commands from a holy God, we tend to have a negative reaction...as though these are things that we have to make ourselves do in order to please Him. This is a very dangerous way to look at God's commands because it's wrong. 

We looked, in the last post, at what God's commands do:

1. They serve to reveal Him.
2. They serve to glorify Him.
3. They are a blessing to us when we keep them! 

As God's children, who have experienced His power of regeneration that completely changes us, we should be noticing, and nurturing, a desire to know and love God more deeply, more personally - this should be the pursuit of our new heart and mind. We will battle the flesh no doubt, because it is of this world, but the battle should prove that the desire of our flesh is in opposition to the desire of our heart and mind. 

This desire to know and love God more each day is crucial, and it must be the root from which everything else grows. This is why the greatest commandment is this: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Mathew 22:37. If we focus on loving God with all of our being, His commands will be a delight to us! We will see clearly how they reveal Him, how He glorifies Himself through them, and how they bless us when we keep them!

Our effort should never be in doing 'good' things for God, but drawing close to God so that we might experience His promise in James 4:8 "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you..." As we draw near to Him, and He draws near to us, our desire to know Him will grow, our love for Him will grow, and He will work through us. The natural result of Almighty God working through His children is spiritual growth! 

We draw near to God when we do as Paul commands here in verse 13, when we present ourselves to Him as those who have been brought from death to life, making evident our new heart and mind. The result of this drawing near to God?

and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

We begin to see the power of God take over our lives. The desires of our heart and mind to pursue God and the joy of being in His presence begins to outweigh the lusts of the flesh and it's influence in our decision making. God's influence on our decision making causes us to want to present our members to Him, that we might be used by Him for righteousness - this is His righteousness being revealed through His children - what a blessing! Thank you Father!

The final thing I want to look at is the order that Paul used here. Paul lays entire books of the bible out in a very specific order, but for now I want to focus on verse 13 - if we follow this order, we will experience a relationship with God that is more powerful and more life-changing than we could imagine - and by His power we can!

1. "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness"
Repent! That is - be moving away from sin and towards God continually. We must always be praying for God to reveal sin in our life, with the purpose of purging it from our life. We can never allow ourselves to have a nonchalant view of sin - all sin is dangerous.

2. "present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life"
As we move away from sin and towards God, we will find it possible to spend time reflecting on what made this new life possible - His Love, His Grace, His Mercy, His Power! We need to pursue God with all of our heart, mind, and soul! Presenting ourselves to Him completely, as His servants to be used by Him!

3. "and your members to God as instruments for righteousness"
As we draw close to God, and He draws close to us, it will become clear that our desire is to nurture this relationship! We need to make sure we do that! As we do, we will find joy in presenting the members of our body to God, to be used by Him to reveal His righteousness to a broken world!