Teaching Notes

The tree can be so useful for many things, shade, fruit, etc. This is what God wants to do with our lives. He wants us to be useful in many ways. Sheltering others and feeding them the Word of God. Picture taken by Jamie Williams.

The Corrupt Tree VS The Good Tree
Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. - Romans 12:1-2

Notes: Paul speaks to the people to tell them what is righteous (good tree) conduct. He tells them with God's help they can take their everyday life and place it before God as an offering. In other words, they can allow their going to school, their friendships, their relationships with parents and family, their jobs, etc. to be used by God to show himself. He tells them to keep their minds fix on God so that they will not be dragged down by the temptations of the world around them, always looking to corrupt you.

Questions: What Does Paul mean by when he calls for us to sacrifice our lives?

Answer: To sacrifice your life means that you will not do things because they are pleasing to you, but because they are in line with what God wants. You will sacrifice (or let go of) what you want so that you can do what God wants. The amazing thing is this. To sacrifice your life, you then gain life. You give up your life (or your idea of life) and you gain God's life for you (or his purpose of life for you). You find that you can enjoy this life and find happiness (from God) doing things God's way.

Prayer: Lord today help us to let go of our lives so that you can give us your purpose for our lives. Help us to see that when we give up or ideas for our lives, it does not mean we will be unhappy. In fact when we give up or ideas, we gain so much more. We gain your purpose, we gain your direction and we gain the joy of knowing we are obedient to you. This new life we gain is far better than the one we lay down.