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This passage follows Paul's ringing call for believers to give their bodies to God as living sacrifices, and leads into a paragraph on using the gifts He's given us to serve each other in the church. But it also addresses our identities as very dissimilar persons who've been joined into one body in Christ. We aren't asked to pretend we're the same, but to acknowledge that we've been incorporated into a band of brothers answering to the same commander.

Romans 12:2-5

1. Why do you think Paul needed (v. 3) to urge honesty in self-appraisal?
2. Do you know people who think too little of themselves?
3. How about people who overestimate themselves?
4. As we evaluate ourselves, what (v. 2) do we need to avoid?
5. What do we need to change?
6. What does verse 3 tell us is the proper gauge of a person's value?
7. Why, according to verses 4 and 5, are we created different from each other?
8. And why do we need and belong to each other?

Thank God for the ethnic and cultural background He ordained for you. Ask Him for an eagerness to be enriched by the perspectives and contributions of people from other backgrounds, and to share from yours.

2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. 3 As God's messenger, I give each of you this warning: Be honest in your estimate of yourselves, measuring your value by how much faith God has given you.

4 Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, 5 so it is with Christ's body. We are all parts of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others.

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Thank you, Lord, for creating my good and beautiful ethnic ancestors and their culture. Help me to embrace my true self in Christ.

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