Leader Reminder: A devotional should take less than 10 minutes and drive home one main point.  Be sure to practice before you lead a devotional. To create your own biblical devotional, click HERE for help. If this is a discussion-oriented devotional, correct answers appear in <these brackets>. ©2011 Rev. Douglas W. Merkey 

• “Therefore” roots what Paul is about to say in the glory of the gospel which he explained in chapters 1-11. With the “therefore,” Paul’s saying, “Because the gospel is true, here are some fundamental results.” And Paul is making this point passionately, as signaled by the phrase “I urge you.” 
• To further ground what he’s about to command in the gospel, Paul refers to the gospel as “the mercies of God” in this verse. Paul really, really wants us to understand that our actions in the Christian life must be rooted in our constant internal apprehension of the gospel. He says we are to live “in view” of the gospel/“God’s mercies.”
• The command to offer our bodies as living sacrifices is a comprehensive one, and only makes sense “in view of God’s mercies.” It means to give God all that we are because He gave all that He is in the gospel.   
• The NIV’s conclusion, “this is your spiritual act of worship” could also be translated “this is your reasonable act of worship.” The latter translation points out that it’s only reasonable, it’s only rational and right, in light of what God’s done for us in the gospel for us to respond with wholehearted, whole-life devotion. A “reasonable” response to someone giving you their life is to give them back your life – but even more so in the event of the gospel!
• Our service to God must be rooted in view of His mercies in the gospel. 

• I saw a bumper sticker on a car today that had a pink ribbon in it and read, “I am a survivor.” I inferred from this that someone in that car survived cancer.
• For that person, their being delivered from cancer is obviously a life-defining event. I’m not sure, besides seeing their bumper sticker, how far-reaching their survival from cancer has affected their lives.
• However, I have known others who have survived cancer. Many of them have altered their entire outlook on life and their life’s direction as a result of that deliverance. They are living “in view of survival from cancer.” 
• This parallels God’s desire for us in the gospel. It’s only reasonable to alter our lives in every way in view of The Event: His saving us by His mercy in the gospel. He has rescued us from eternal death, not merely temporal cancer! In view of that amazing mercy, we respond with lives of “living sacrifice.” 

• We are a Life Team in a Christian church that teaches, preaches, and praises God for His mercies in the gospel. It is reasonable for us as a Life Team made up of people who have received His mercy in the gospel to do what we do in that light. 
• As rescued sinners in the gospel on this Life Team, we don’t do what we do in view of God’s anger or demands. God is not some manipulative Person who expects devotion from us under the threat of wrath. No! The gospel, Paul tells us, is God’s mercy. And in view of that, we do what we do!
• Let’s be sure we are centered in the gospel in this meeting. Let’s thank God for His mercies to us in Christ, and then spend our meeting time as “living sacrifices” in view of His mercies.