As we get closer to the Easter celebration or Resurrection Sunday as some call it, I am reminded of the amazing sacrifice Jesus displayed on the cross and cannot help but think of his own call to us to follow him. Every time we have communion as believers, we remember what Christ did on the cross. Communion is an ordinance that the Lord himself instituted for us which means we are never to forget his sacrifice and take our salvation for granted. “Thou who was rich beyond all splendor all for love’s sake became poor” is the greatest expression of love we will ever know. However, as magnificent and wonderful as the work Christ did on the cross on our behalf is, it also comes with an expectation from us – those who have accepted and received him as their personal Lord and Saviour. We cannot just say, thank you Jesus for your sacrifice and fold our hands, no, the Lord expects us as we receive him to give him our very lives; he expects us to be living sacrifices; he expects us to be obedient to his commands. To many of you this might be common knowledge, you might even be able to point out where in the bible it says so but how are you faring in comparison to what is expected of you? Do you know what it looks like to be a living sacrifice? In today’s post, I would like to shed light on what a living sacrifice means from the life of Paul and what God expects of us who have pledged our allegiance to Him.
The bible is clear in the book of Ephesians that before being born again, that is before accepting Christ as our Lord and Saviour, we were “dead in our trespasses” and we belonged to the kingdom of darkness (Ephesians 2:1). Moreover, the bible tells us that there are two natures at war within us: the flesh and the spirit. The flesh belongs to the kingdom of darkness and only seeks to gratify its pleasures while the spirit belongs to the kingdom of God and seeks to gratify the desires of the Lord. Each kingdom has its own rules and ways of life. The rescue mission that Jesus did on the cross for us means we now belong to the kingdom of the one true God. Therefore, as citizens of that kingdom, we have to follow the ways and laws of that kingdom. These two kingdoms can never coexist. The main requirement of the kingdom of God is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and to love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark12:29-31). This entails sacrifice and giving up yourself for the sake of your King. No wonder Paul famously says in Galatians “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). He literally offered his life as a daily sacrifice. How did he do that, you might ask? I will give three examples. Well, first and foremost by surrendering his will. You see, when Paul became a Christian, he stopped in his old tracks and only focused on what the Lord had in store for him. Paul’s ministry was one that was led by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit would sometimes send him places where hardships would await him. Paul never complained, not once. Instead he rejoiced at the sight of suffering, he rejoiced that this new life of which he had no idea what tomorrow would bring was far better than the life he once had. We know that by human standards the life Paul had was not a mediocre or poor life. Indeed, Paul belonged to the elite. So for him to embrace his new life and have disdain for his old life should compel us. Second, Paul offered his life as a daily sacrifice by dying to his opinions, thoughts or anything that were not according to Christ. As he puts it in 2 Corinthians “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). For Paul, Christ had to have the pre-eminence in everything including his mind. I think, we often forget how much influence our thoughts dictate everything we do and say or the things that go into our minds. But here Paul reminds us that we are what we think, therefore, to be a living sacrifice includes subjecting your mind and your thoughts to Christ’s thoughts. Third, Paul offered his life as a daily sacrifice by dying for Christ. According to Paul, dying was not a fatality, after all, he is the one who said “to me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Paul dedicated his entire life for the cause of Christ even if that cause was to bring him death. His passion for Christ and the things of God fueled every decision he made, how he spent his time, where he went, where he would sleep, who he would speak to, etc. Paul’s life is a very good example of what it means to love the Lord your God with your mind, body and soul. These are the character traits that should be seen in the lives of redeemed people, those of us who have believed on Jesus and said yes to him. We too, like Paul, must be able to offer our bodies as daily sacrifices for that is the requirement of the kingdom of God. God must be exalted and we must diminish. How Paul lived his Christian life of total surrender, dying to his will and death is not specific to him. In fact, this was the life that every servant of God displayed. For example, the prophets in the Old Testament did not have a life of their own, they were to be obedient to the Lord even when God was telling them to do things that did not make sense. Think of Hosea marrying Gomer the prostitute (Hosea 1:2), or Ezekiel burying his own wife but not being allowed to mourn her (Ezekiel 24:15-27) or what about having a child and not being able to name them the way you’d like (Hosea 1:9)? All these examples simply attest to the fact that in the kingdom of God, God is the one who directs your life, in fact, your life is completely His, not partially. The psalmist in response to those who ask “where is their God?” says “our God is in the heaven; he does all that He pleases” (Psalm 115:3), to this phrase, I want to add “he does all that he pleases including with your life”. Jesus is the King of our new kingdom, we are the citizens and citizens do not dictate how the King should operate. We are servants. To quote Paul again, we are “slaves to righteousness”, slaves to Christ. We are not our own.
I pray that we will be living our lives more and more with a focus on dying to ourselves, dying to our passions, our desires, our will, our needs, in order to gain Christ. May the Lord grant us the grace to crucify the flesh daily with its deadly passions. Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 