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Living Sacrifice

           Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. (Romans 12:1)

          In Genesis 3, God sacrificed one or more animals so that Adam and Eve could have clothing. In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel sacrificed to the Lord. After that, it’s not until after the flood that we hear anything more about sacrificing. Noah sacrificed. Abram was credited as sacrificing his son. In Judges 11, Jephthah vowed to sacrifice to the Lord whatever came out of his house first when he returned from defeating his enemies. It turned out to be his daughter. Scripture does explicitly state that he killed her, but neither does it explicitly state that he didn’t. It also doesn’t state that Jephthah asked God His opinion on the matter. The sacrifice would have been a violation of the Law. There were legal ways around it, but one of the points of Judges is that more often than not, the Judges weren’t students of the Law.

          What would have happened if instead of joining Eve in her sin, Adam had offered to die on her behalf? Or if Abram or Jephthah would have said, “Take me instead of my son!” We don’t know, because until Jesus, we have no record of someone offering himself/herself as a sacrifice in the place of any other. We spend the whole of human history wanting to be “like God,” and finally, God (the Son) shows up and teaches us that to be like God, we must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of people who hate us as well as those who love us.

          One of the challenges this verse makes clear is that a one time, heroic effort is not enough. Yes, Jesus came, and died in our places, and returned to life, never to die again. Heroic “ultimate” sacrifices may be necessary, but in this passage, it’s not about dying for a cause, but about living for one. It’s not about giving up your life. It’s about giving up your life. And that’s what Jesus did. At least in a sense, He gave up deity. He lived for thirty years as a “nobody” before beginning His ministry and died, was buried, and returned to life.

          Thirty years is a drop in the ocean compared to eternity, but sometimes, we get frustrated that we’re expected to live for two or three times that before we get to the eternity part. But the length of the sacrifice is not nearly as important as the attitude. And this is part of what the Law addresses in its principles about sacrifice. It couldn’t be just anything. It had to be perfect. There was to be nothing dishonest or slip-shod about it. David refused to offer something that cost him nothing. These are some standards we should apply to giving ourselves as living sacrifices.

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