it's about acceptance...

to get others to serve, i often hear people quote this verse:

Romans 12: 1Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

however, this verse is not really about service...it's about acceptance.

in the past, very few people were allowed to serve God; the High Priest could enter the Holy of holies only once a year.  in short, people were not acceptable to God under the Old Covenant.  people were not worthy to serve Him.

under the New Covenant, however, we are acceptable to God.  we are (finally) living and holy, where before we were dead and stained.  where we were once rejected, we are now accepted.  where we could not worship, we now can worship.

this verse in an encouragement...you could read it like this:

brothers, God made you holy and alive by His mercy; He accepts you.  you don't have to be afraid of Him anymore or stay away from Him anymore.  i urge you to believe this and to act like it is true.  and, if you want to, you can now serve Him

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
but, i haven't gone far enough yet.
you see, despite what i wrote above, i would go so far as to say this is not about 'service' at all...this is not about 'doing things' in the slightest.  what paul saying is that simply believing we have become holy and living and acceptable IS, ITSELF, our spiritual service of worship.  in other words, paul is saying that we worship God BY BELIEVING, not by doing lots of stuff.

this all connects with the verses that follow.  believing we are this living and holy person is the way that we 'renew our mind'; believing is how we 'test and approve God's perfect and pleasing will'; we 'test' it when we consider not believing it; we 'approve' it when we believe it, when we agree with it.  ...however, if we do believe this (we are holy), we might get a big head; hence the warnings about thinking too much of ourselves that follow.

Takeaway
you are acceptable to God; you are alive and Holy.  believing God is worship.
Application
it is suitable to act like you are Holy and alive and acceptable, to present yourself to God that way, to worship Him by believing it is finished.