Very few of the words used in the translation above actually appears in the original Greek of Paul's words.  If yesterday's verse from the Living Bible was a paraphrasing of the original, the Message version is more like an explanation of how the writer feels about this verse.  I begin to wonder if Rick Warren chose these verses to demonstrate the drift of our reading materials from the original source. We are seeing a greater and greater distance every days.

I am used to seeing this drift of meaning from the original Greek to the Latin Vulgate, to the Textus Receptus Greek version to the KJV of the Bible, but those changes minor compared to what we see happening here.

I wonder what this means for the future of Christianity?

I almost hesitate to translate the original since it is very difficult to relate to the quote above,  but since that is what I do, I show it below.

Transliterated Greek

Παρακαλῶ  (I call) οὖν (therefor) ὑμᾶς (you), ἀδελφοί, (brothers) διὰ (through) τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν (the compassion) τοῦ θεοῦ (of the Divine) παραστῆσαι (to stand beside) τὰ (those) σώματα (bodies) ὑμῶν (of yours) θυσίαν (being a sacrifice) to ζῶσαν (of living) ἁγίαν (sacred) τῷ θεῷ (to the Divine) εὐάρεστον (acceptable), τὴν (that) λογικὴν (intellectual)  λατρείαν (service) ὑμῶν (of yours):

English Version

So, again in a more standard form of English:

I call you, brothers, through the compassion of the Divine to present those bodies of yours, being a sacrifice of living, sacred to the Divine: acceptable, that meaningful service of yours.

There is  quite a bit of wordplay hidden in the Greek, something I don't expect from Paul because he is not nearly as playful with words as Jesus. This sacrifice is not "of life" but of living, not giving up your life, but living it in a certain way. Though Paul was talking about many bodies, he is only talking about one sacrifice, the sacrifice of living. The text describes living in a way that is sacred and acceptable to the Divine but it goes onto say that this is defined by "meaningful" service. 

However, the adjective I translated as "meaningful" is complex. It means "of or for speech", "of eloquence",  "intellectual", "possessed of reason", and "argumentative". It is an uncommon adjective but it is a  form of a  logos, which means  "computation", "relation", "explanation", "law", "rule of conduct", "continuous statement", "tradition", "discussion," "reckoning," and "value." This is the Greek word translated as "word" in the NT. This is the source of our word "logic" and is the root word for all the English words that end in "-ology." Most biblical translations translated it as "word" for somewhat poetic reasons. More about this word in this article.