Yielded Lives
Romans 6:12-13
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
The word yield is found five times in this chapter; verses 13, 16, 19. It means, to place at one’s disposal, to present, or to offer as a sacrifice.” The Old Testament sacrifices were dead sacrifices. The Lord may ask some of us to die for Him, but He asks all of us to live for Him.
According to Romans 12:1 the believer’s body should be presented to the Lord as “a living sacrifice” for His glory. Thus, our sacrifice is a daily surrender of ourselves, body and soul, to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is important to notice the tense of the verbs here, for a literal translation might be “Do not constantly allow sin to reign in your mortal body so that you are constantly obeying its lusts. Neither constantly yield the members of your body as weapons (or tools) of unrighteousness to sin, but once and for all yield yourselves to God.” The believer’s body is God’s temple, and He wants to use it for His glory. Your body is God’s tool and God’s weapon and He intends to use it as tools for building His kingdom and for weapons for fighting His enemies.
God used the rod in Moses’s hand and conquered Egypt. He used the sling in David’s hand to defeat the Philistines. He used the mouths and tongues of the prophets. Paul’s feet carried him from city to city to proclaim the Gospel. The apostle John’s eyes saw visions of the future, his ears heard God’s message, and his fingers wrote it all down in a book that we can read.
However, the Bible also records how the members of the body were used for sinful purposes. David’s eyes looked on his neighbor’s wife, his mind plotted a wicked scheme; his hand signed a cowardly order for the woman’s husband to be killed. Psalm 51 declares that his whole body was used in sin, and then in repentance; his eyes (v.3), mind (v.6), ears (v.8), heart (v.10), and lips and mouth (vs.14-15). It is no wander he prayed for a thorough cleansing in verse 2.
When you commit sin your body is dedicated to the service of sin. Your appetites, whetted by Satan, rage unthrottled. Your God-given creative impulses are sacrificed to Satan on the altar of lust. You have yielded to your appetites and selfish desires, often without realizing that Satan is using you for his unholy purposes. “For as ye have yielded you members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity . . . even so now yield you members servants to righteousness unto holiness” (v.19).
It is sad, but many people who name the name of Christ, have unclean hands, unclean lips, unclean tongues, unclean feet, unclean thoughts, and unclean hearts. Yet they want to claim they are Christians. They claim they attend church, try to worship and pray–but they know there are things in their souls that are not right with God. In fact, there is little evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. The fire in their souls has been quenched, or else has never been lite by God’s Holy Spirit.