Growing up in a Christian family, I was taught that being a Christian meant giving up some portions of your life. Give up an hour on Sunday to go to church, give up soda during the Lenten season, give up another hour on Wednesdays for youth group. Whenever I would complain to my parents they would just tell me, "it's just one hour in the week, is it that hard?" After growing and maturing in my faith, my old thought process couldn't be more wrong.
What Paul tells us in these verses is that God doesn't just want a portion of our time a week, He wants us and all of us. When Paul says God wants our "bodies as a living sacrifice" he means God wants all of us, from the moment we wake up in the morning to when we go to sleep, to be advocates for him and live lives pleasing to him. Paul says that's how we truly and properly worship God. Whether we're out in a crowd or alone in our rooms, God wants us to live lives that exemplify him.
This seems kind of tough though, don't we all have times when we're just focused on school or sports or something not related to God? And it's true we might not be actively focusing on God, but I don't think that's what Paul is getting to here. By actively living holy lives it changes the matter in which we live our lives. This looks like not getting angry after losing a game of basketball, or being patient with your siblings when they're trying to get you mad. Everyday, "non-Christian" activities can be pleasing to God if you go about them in the way God would.
So let's think about what areas in our life God hasn't spilled into yet. It might be something you've been doing long before you became a Christian, or an area where you just can't see yourself acting holy. These might be the hardest places to change. But it's crucial to being a living sacrifice, for all parts of our lives to be for God. To really worship God as our Lord and Savior, we need him to be flowing into every facet and corner of our lives.
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