Romans 12:1–2 (NLT)
A Living Sacrifice to God
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Exodus 33:1–2 , 12-17 (NLT)
The Lord said to Moses, “Get going, you and the people you brought up from the land of Egypt. Go up to the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I told them, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’ 2 And I will send an angel before you to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
12 One day Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Take these people up to the Promised Land.’ But you haven’t told me whom you will send with me. You have told me, ‘I know you by name, and I look favorably on you.’ 13 If it is true that you look favorably on me, let me know your ways so I may understand you more fully and continue to enjoy your favor. And remember that this nation is your very own people.”
14 The Lord replied, “I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.”
15 Then Moses said, “If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place. 16 How will anyone know that you look favorably on me—on me and on your people—if you don’t go with us? For your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all other people on the earth.”
17 The Lord replied to Moses, “I will indeed do what you have asked, for I look favorably on you, and I know you by name.”
Do You Want To Dance?
There’s nothing like watching ballroom dancing - two humans, each doing their own part to create the mesmerizing appearance of floating seamlessly together around a dance floor. Getting swept into the transcendent feeling of a couple dancing like no one’s watching, it can be easy to forget that serious techniques and skills are in play to make their twirls seem flowy and effortless – as if anyone could just get up out of their seat and do the same. But anyone who has ever done ballroom dancing knows “no technical training, no mesmerizing.”
The dance of life was designed to be a similar experience – God the Creator seamlessly partnering with humanity to put on display the wonder and beauty of His heart-felt choreography throughout the entire ballroom of His Creation. Since humanity’s big fall in the Garden of Eden while dancing with the wrong partner (Satan), our resulting injuries have made it more complicated to dance so effortlessly with God. But we can take some tips from ballroom dancers to understand how to make our dance with Jesus the captivating demonstration of what life lived in a relationship with Him can be – inspiring others to want to get up from the fall and learn to dance as well.
Here’s what this looks like…
Technique #1: Leader/Follower Dynamic
Just as a smooth and successful ballroom dance always consists of a leader and a follower, partnering with God in life requires that one of us leads and the other follows. If you’ve ever tried a waltz with Him, you know it doesn’t take too many turns around the dance floor to realize that God is best fit to take the lead.
A truly good leader maintains a strong, steady core from which he guides (never forces or pushes) his partner through a dance, mostly through his own skillful movement.
A great follower also maintains a strong, steady core, but she uses her resolve to stay aligned with the leader and wait patiently for his prompts. While she knows her own dance steps well (being well-trained in them is critical), she allows him to determine the pace, direction, and way in which she will use them at any given point in a dance.
In the same way, it is as we use our strong resolve to lay down our own agendas (lives) and stay in alignment with God’s sure and steady movements (the Words He gave, examples He set while on earth, the things He is doing in our current life circumstances, and His loving expressions toward us) that the ways we think about our own life dances are transformed. This is how any steps we have trained to skillfully master (daily activities, gifts, talents, and abilities) can be kept in alignment with His will (Romans 12:1-2).
Any confusion about who is leading and who is following can create less than desirable results. Moving impatiently ahead of the leader, getting out of alignment with him, or simply refusing to move at all can cause missteps, sore toes, and collisions. Any of these can even be a form of backleading caused by a lack of trust in his ability to lead. The telltale signs are when a follower advises, pushes, or directs the leader. Because mistrust hinders the natural nonverbal communication necessary for keeping a dance smooth, it must be dealt with before resuming.
Technique #2: Maintaining The Common Center (Staying Connected)
Also necessary for a ballroom dance to look smooth and seamless is a couple’s ability to maintain a “common center.” Keeping hands and key points of the body in alignment together (in different ways depending on the type of dance) is foundational for the leading/responding dynamic. Certain amounts of tension and compression in these points of connection allow each partner to always maintain just the right distance and alignment so no one is pulling away from the other while doing different steps.
Prayer in the Christian life works the same way. The “back-and-forth,” “push-and pull” of our conversations with God create the needed tension and compression necessary for keeping in alignment with Him throughout different life circumstances, responsibilities and tasks. When we feel an awkward distance, it is a signal to once again strengthen our core resolve to align with Him.
The more complex and fast-paced the dance steps our Leader invites us into, the more critical keeping our common center becomes lest we wind up a tangled, erratic, and out-of-control mess. St. Francis de Sales is credited with saying “Everyone should pray for half an hour a day, except when they are busy – then they should pray for an hour.” The Protestant reformer, Martin Luther said “I have so much business to do today, that I shall not be able to get through it with less than three hours’ prayer.” Prayer while “dancing” - while working, driving, creating, sitting quietly, or even talking to another person is the common center with God in all things.
Technique #3: Leading Cues, Signals, and Invitations
While connection points between dancing partners help them maintain a common center and sense of alignment, they also allow the leader to naturally cue, signal, and invite his partner to move as he moves. Any motion backward, forward, side-to-side, or even from a thumb or finger offering a cue can easily be sensed by the follower when their connection is secure.
God’s most common cues, signals, and invitations are prompts from His Word, the unusual aligning of life circumstances and experiences all at once, confirmations from people who are praying, and an overwhelming peace that makes no sense. Less common are when some feel strong impressions that seem to come from outside their own lines of thinking, hear a still, small voice that can even feel audible at times, have visions and dreams, or are given Scriptural and spiritual knowledge – almost like a download into their minds they can’t explain. Any of these four are always followed up by confirmations from external sources – visions, dreams and audible messages only being trusted if they come true in real life (Jeremiah 28:9).
When all of these necessary technicalities come together rightly, creating a beautiful display of grace and wonder out of whatever “dance” (task, project or challenge) has just been completed, spectators may happily cheer. But the richest and most fulfilling celebration is experienced only between the two dancers in the room - leader and follower. And it isn’t really as much over the few moments of performance as it is the whole process. The planning, practicing, and adjusting. All the conversations, lessons learned, resolved disagreements, and growth that never could have happened unless they willingly worked together are what the celebration is truly about.
And this moment is meaningful and special regardless of whether the audience is cheering wildly because they loved every second of the performance, or they didn’t really get into it as much, had different opinions on what dance steps could have been better, didn’t enjoy the song or outfits of choice, or just weren’t that big of ballroom dancing fans in the first place.
Enjoying this deeper celebration with Jesus and not getting caught up in the thrills of others liking a performance, or despair over them not liking it is the distinctive sign a heart is truly sacrificially serving Jesus, and following His lead because of His love. (Romans 12:1, Colossians 3:23 and Proverbs 29:25).
Our lives were never meant to be a solo performance for God, another human, or any group of humans. Jesus said that apart from Him and His skill in leading, we can do nothing (John 15:5). Nothing as captivating, mesmerizing and lovely as the dance He designed for us to do in a graceful, creative partnership with Him (Ephesians 2:10).
So – do you want to dance?
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6
Reflection Questions
In Romans 12:1, the Apostle Paul urges Christians to give the whole of their lives up to God as a “living and holy sacrifice.” The implication is that it is safe for us to do this because of His overwhelming love and willingness to sacrifice His all for us. He is good and 100% trustworthy in all things.
Paul’s own life was an example of being a living sacrifice. Because of a powerful encounter with God in which he experienced His goodness and trustworthiness, he was willing to sacrifice the title, status, wealth, comfort, and all the relationships his impressive education afforded him in order to continually let God lead and renew his mind into new ways of thinking about and doing everything he did.
Long before the book of Romans was even thought of, another man named Moses also had a powerful and life-changing encounter with God’s holiness and loving heart. It also created in him a willingness to lay down his life as a daily act of service to God. The book of Exodus is the amazing story of how the One he was following was faithful to take the lead in all the right ways as Moses consistently allowed his own ways of thinking about his life, daily tasks, and responsibilities to be renewed during deep conversations with Him.
When we read about people like these two men, we often think of service to God and following His will as some kind of big and abrupt change in our lives. Confronting world leaders, parting seas, overseeing the historical beginning of God’s Church, and being imprisoned for sharing the Gospel come to mind.
But both of these men were technically, simply learning to think about everything they did with their time, the meeting of their own and others’ basic needs, and taking care of their daily responsibilities through the lens of aligning themselves with their Leader and following His cues. This is how they each got swept up into a “dance” with God that led them to places they would have never dreamt of going – His will for them.
When it comes down to the technicalities necessary for becoming “the kind of sacrifices God finds acceptable,” our lives as Christians are no different from theirs. Regardless of whether or not God leads us on big adventures like Paul and Moses or allows us to stay in our current life circumstances, being skilled in the same techniques as they were is our secret to allowing God to lead us into new ways of thinking and discovering His will for us in all things.
Our reflection questions come from their two stories and Romans 12:1-2.