Thursday: Sacrifices Today / Living Sacrifice
Though after Christ’s sacrificial death there was no more need for animal sacrifices,
Image © David Sorensen from GoodSalt.com
the New Testament does talk about the need for another kind of sacrifice instead.
According to these texts, what kind of offerings are we to bring to God today? Rom. 12:1-2; Phil. 4:18; Heb. 13:15-16; 1 Pet. 2:5.
Terminology from the sacrificial system worked very well in describing the early Christian concept of what it meant to live a life totally consecrated to God. In fact, even when Paul was thinking about his martyrdom, he described himself as a drink offering (Phil. 2:17, 2 Tim. 4:6).
What specific message is given us in Romans 12:1? In what ways are we to manifest this truth in our own lives?
A “living sacrifice” means that the entire person is given to God. It includes the dedication of the body (Rom. 12:1) as well as the transformation of the inner being (vs. 2). We are to be set apart (“holy”) for the sole purpose of serving the Lord. Christians will present themselves wholly to the Lord because of the “mercies of God,”as described in Romans 12:1–11, which present Christ as our sacrifice, the means of our salvation.
In this context, Paul’s appeal is for Christians to imitate Christ. A true understanding of God’s grace leads to a life consecrated to God and to a loving service for others. Surrender of self and the desires of self to the will of God is the only reasonable response to Christ’s ultimate sacrifice for us.
In the end, there has to be a harmony between our understanding of spiritual and doctrinal truth and our service to others. Every aspect of life should express the believer’s genuine commitment to God. True worship is never only inward and spiritual; it must encompass outward acts of selfless service. After all, think about what our Lord has done for us.
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When we give up bad habits like partaking of unclean food we have not begun to sacrifice. We but merely spare ourselves harm. To sacrifice in the spirit of grace is to offer (return) to our Maker something meaningful, even ourselves. Sometimes that means parting with something we hold dear, but we do it out of a heart of gratitude. At times this may or may not work to our immediate and direct advantage. Yet the greater value is in the advancement of the Kingdom of God in the lives of others and our own. Sacrificing conditions us for life in heaven, whose heartbeat is the service of love.
The lesson teach us that our body is the best gift to God. The best gift any person can give to a God is not money, car, house or a 1000.00 euro suit but the body.
Today's lesson was beautiful, the love of the Lord when he offers the ultimate sacrifice. What love and mercy for all of us.
We must be living sacrifices as Jesus was. He offered himself a living sacrifice by dying for all of us to buy us salvation. Today what we must do is to go by the book as Jesus did. "By this perceive we the love of God that he died for us therefore we also ought to give our life for the brethren." The brethren being said here is both man and God. We are to give ourselves a living sacrifice to God through preaching unceasingly, both in words and acts. Helping the needy with what God has blessed us. Standing for the truth always.
Blessings to each and everyone, what a priviledge to give thanks to a might God, that we serve everyday. Amen. Our bodies are to serve as living sacrifices to God, and in order for us to that, we really have to give up self, and turn our eyes upon Jesus. There are little things that we sometimes don't think is wrong, but in the eyes of God it is wrong. Like the little bad habbits of speaking to each other in a disrespectful way, or not giving each other time to say they are sorry for things they have done, and many other little things that we do and think nothing of it.
We have to pray earnestly and ask God to show them to us.
We also have to drop some of the television shows that we watch and also allow our children to watch, and think its just a cartoon. Some of them have unGodly things in them, we have to remember we gave ourselves aliving sacrifice to him, and we surrender all. That is why we have to be careful about how we sing the song, "I surrender all." Because we are not surrendering all. Let us keep remembering that God loves us, and in order for us to love him back, we must obey his commandents, and really give our lives to him, and ask for guidence, and wait , have patience, and look for his daily answers to our prays, remember to give thanks daily.
God is a just and a loving God, he doesn't want to loose anyone of us. I want to see Him when he comes, and rise to meet Him in the sky, don't you?
I don't know if everyone was blessed by this week's lesson as I was. "Offering our bodies as a living sacrifice,holy and acceptable to God!" This statement though so short has got the biggest information that can guide human being to reconcile with God. This is not merely about just reading the bible, singing hymns,doing those good things like visiting orphanages....that is good,don't get me wrong but this verse asks us for much more. That our bodies be a habitat for nothibg else but the things of God,that our mind filters every single detail,that our daily living be a blessing to those who meet us. It asks us to be mere "instruments ready for use anywhere and anyhow by the Almighty God. It entails leaving the dearest of all our things because a "sacrifice" has to be meaningful annd acceptable.
Our bodies maybe clean of adultery,or unclean food,but the little things like trash talking make them unacceptable to God. We have learnt about how a sacrifice should be and if we understand that from this week's lesson,we will pray even harder because killing self is not just a mere action....it is a process. "Self" hinders us from being God's sacrifices,from being the sweet scent to Him...I pray that we seek the Lord's assistance and be what He wants us to be.
sacrificing is not all about giving material things, people now know how to give back what belongs to God for example tithe, but we have few people who sacrifice thier own things for God's work we want to do God's work when we are free. therefore it is important for us to learn how to give the best of what we have be it material things or evangelising wherever we are
What a great lesson..the more i dig deeper into this quarters lesson the more i realize how the great controversy between Christ and Satan is beefed up and it makes me plead guilty to all the charges leveled against me. Indeed HE IS COMING and it only takes willingness and at times solo effort to seek him.."O God i want to be among the number when the saints go marching in"
To the faithful lambs on His right side Jesus says "you saw me naked and you clothed me , hungry and you fed me , thirsty and you gave me something to drink , homeless and you provided a shelter for me..." Notice , nothing isn't said about preaching , singing and so forth ( not that they are less important) but at the end of the day it is the sacrifices we make that makes a bigger difference in our Salvation as we cannot pretend to do such.The concept of presenting our bodies a "living sacrifice" therefore is not just a one time thing but an ongoing process as long as we have life in us. Let us strive to be living sacrifices in order to hear the words uttered "come , good and faithful servant..."
When animals were given as sacrifices ,i remember one author described it as without blemish ...CAN we say this ....is my body ,your body without blemish? Are the spots of unclean foods ,sexual immorality ,blasphemy,drukenness ,and especially idolatry removed. God wants us our living sacrifice without blemish that he may use us to our full potential ...Would we let him?
The idea of sacrificing this and that for God is important but the core of our sacrifice has to do with self. We have to sacrifice ourselves just as Abraham did when he was ready to sacrifice what he loved the most or God did by giving what was most precious to Him. When we are ready to surrender fully our will to the will of God as we see also n the example of Jesus in Ghetsemani (" Your will be done") and this on a dally basis even moment by moment we will became the sacrifice that is acceptable to God. .
We cannot on our own present our bodies as living sacrifice. Like the animals of old we have to "die" to self and allow Jesus , who is knocking at the doors of our hearts , into our lives. When He enters into our lives then and only then can we present our bodies a living sacrifice. Just as the Apostle Paul allows Jesus to dwell in him , when we too allow Him to dwell in us we can be assured of fighting the good fight and keeping the faith...