“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).
True Christian devotedness evidently flows from the devout consideration of the mercies or compassions of God to the poor, outcast sinner. The Apostle appeals to the hearts of the brethren as being happily acquainted with the riches of divine mercy to lost and ruined souls. The effect of meditating on this aspect of God’s character is transformation to His image and devotedness to His glory, as our holy, acceptable and reasonable service. Most blessed, precious privilege! And this holy imitation of the divine character, be it observed, is not the result of our own efforts, but flows naturally from the blessed truth that we are made partakers of the divine nature, as taught more fully by the Apostle elsewhere. “Be ye therefore followers of God [or, literally, imitators of God], as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.”
Here pause for a moment and meditate deeply; the subject is vast and most practical. Talking of devotedness, of holiness, of consecration, what is your standard? Is it your own possible attainments by unwearied watchings, fastings, diligence, or what? Self in a thousand ways may be your governing object, but wrong in all. Could God present a lesser or lower object to His children than Himself, as morally displayed in the person and work of His beloved Son? Impossible! “It would dishonor Himself and the grace He has shown us, and it would be the most grievous loss to His children beloved, whom He would train and bless yet more and more even in this scene of evil and sorrow, turning the most adverse circumstances into an occasion of teaching us what He is in the depths of His grace, and filling ourselves with the sense of it, so as to form our hearts and fashion our ways. . . . Neither law nor even promise ever opened such a field as this. The very call so to imitate God supposes the perfect grace in which we stand; indeed it would be insupportable otherwise”
(W. Kelly).