John Phillips writes that here in Romans 12:1 “The challenge has to do with the believer’s body, which Paul now reveals to be the ultimate key to the practice of the victorious Christian life. It is of little avail to know theoretically the truths of Romans 6-8 if the body is not surrendered so that the life of Christ can be expressed in the everyday affairs of life…God does not compel and coerce the believer into presenting his body. He does not corral him and bridle him like a horse and force him to obey. He beseeches him. He wants an unbridled sacrifice. He makes it clear that to present the body to God is, for the believer, the proper thing to do. It is an axiom of Bible study that when we come across the word “therefore” we should pause and see what it’s there for! In this case it links God’s demand for the believer’s body with those “mercies” Paul has been describing in both the doctrinal and dispensational sections of the epistle. God has saved us from sin, from its penalty and its power. He has saved us from self in all its features and all its forms. He has overruled the destinies of nations. He has triumphed in His grace and multiplied His mercies. He has, as it were, besieged us with His mercies, brought them up against us in countless number, built the bulwarks of His grace against our souls, poured a ceaseless cannonade of kindness in upon the breaches in our hearts. He has overwhelmed us with unmerited favor and carried all before Him on the resistless arms of love. “I beseech you therefore,” says Paul, “by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies.” It is the proper thing to do. It is the only possible thing to do. It is the only fitting answer we can give to “love so amazing, so divine.” (Phillips, John: Exploring Romans: An Expository Commentary)