Put those two together for us.

Sure.

We often think of worship as something verbal, that it is something we just do with our words, whether they're spoken or sung, or even if they're a quiet prayer in the heart, like nobody else hears them, but there are words, you know, we're praising the Lord.

We're giving thanks to the Lord.

But what we see in scripture is that worship is much bigger than that.

It's not just what we do with our words.

It's how we live with our lives.

Please,

What does it actually mean to offer our whole selves to God, and why does Paul specifically talk about our bodies?

Yes, this is central to this whole idea of being a living sacrifice.

First of all, I do believe that Paul is talking about our literal bodies.

Our eyes, our ears, our hands, our feet, everything is to be used to glorify Him, and I think a passage that really helps us understand that is Romans 6, where Paul says, "Use the members of your body, the parts of your body, as instruments or tools of righteousness." And he goes on to say in Romans 6, "Do not use the members of your body as instruments," or we can say, again, tools, "for unrighteousness or disobedience." Every part of our body is to be used in a way that glorifies God and not to be used in a way that dishonors Him.

But in that, I think there's also a figurative aspect that Paul is talking about, and he's saying, your body is representative of the whole of who you are.

So for example, let's say there's a young man who asks for a young lady's hand in marriage.

He's not just asking for her hand, he's asking for the whole of her.

Tell our listeners why these are such significant obstacles to wholehearted devotion.