LIVING SACRIFICE

“So, you’re religious right?” my colleague asks me at the start of my first shift at my new job.

“How do you live differently because of your faith?”

I mean, nice easy question to break the ice… but still, I tell her. I tell her that I read my bible and pray daily (okay… most days), I tell her I’m saving sex for when I’m married, that I give away a portion of my earnings to church and charities and prioritise going to church on Sunday.

That’s basically all there is to it, right?

Way back in the depths of the old testament in Genesis 15 God makes Abram a promise, and Abram asks how he can know that it will be true.

(source: YouVersion bible app)

The sun set, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and “a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces” where the blood of the cut animals pooled together.

With no clear instruction as to what to do with the requested animals, Abram arranged them ready for a ritual treaty. The blood path rite was used between kings and tribes making a covenant, it was common and familiar in the Middle East at the time, and still practiced in some places around the world today. Two parties would in turn walk through the blood bath, and in doing so they promised they would uphold the conditions of the covenant, vowing that if they break their promise may what has been done to the animals also be done to them.

Abram knows what to do, he prepares the ritual and knows what is coming.

The first party, God, steps forward and passes through the pieces as a smoking firepot.

And then it’s the turn of the second party, Abram.

At Abram’s turn to step forward and accept the fate of the animals for not upholding the conditions of the covenant again the Lord God passes through the pieces as a blazing torch.

The promise to Abram could not have been clearer –

I am making you this promise. If I do not keep it, if break my end of the bargain may I like these animals be torn in two. And if you do not keep your promise to me, if you break your end of the bargain, may I instead of you again be torn in two.

2000 years later Jesus suffered and died on the cross, not because He didn’t keep to his end of the bargain but because we did not keep to ours.

And yet, when I am asked about how my life looks different because I know Jesus, I reel of my list of chores.

(source: YouVersion bible app)

"Sacrifice" has always been the word that stood out to me in this verse. Live differently, do not conform to the patterns of this world, offer your life in worship as a sacrifice to God. Do this, do that…

May I ask, do you remember the word that is written before “sacrifice”?

This is far from an easy challenge and I am not undermining Paul’s instruction to “conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel” (Phil 1:27). But why is he- how can he ask this off us?

         "In view of God's mercy"
                 "Because of all he has done for you"

More than a requirement of God’s authority, or even a thank you for God’s grace, we are to offer ourselves as a LIVING sacrifice because of the blood that Jesus spilt as His body was torn in two on the cross, so that we may have LIFE. No more must we offer slaughtered calves on an alter and no more must we suffer the punishment of sin. 

The only sacrifice the Lord requires of us is to live a life of worship where we know we are free and forgiven, ransomed by His grace.

Do you know that you are alive?

When Jesus was presented with a woman caught in adultery about to be stoned to death, He addresses her accusers saying, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone”. As those around go away one by one, Jesus is the only one left without sin, with the right and authority to throw a stone – and He lets her go.

Jesus, God in human flesh who came to earth to make for all the perfect sacrifice for sin would later suffer and die on the cross in her place.

He was executed, so she did not have to be.

(source: YouVersion bible app)

The cross was never a get-out-of-jail-free card for a life of sin, and the bible leaves no room for that excuse. But the bible is also more than a rule book, a to-do list, or a reel of chores. It speaks into the depths of the human condition, of our weakness and brokenness and tells of the story of a Father who from the beginning promised to give away everything, the very breath in His lungs, to save, restore and bring back home his beloved sons and daughters.

Do you know that you are alive?

Do you know that Jesus died for you?

Do you know that you are free and forgiven?

"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. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Romans 12:1-2

                                                                                                                                                                   

Credit must go to "Abram’s Animal Ceremony in Genesis 15 - An Exegesis of Genesis 15:7-21" for the insight it offered in writing this post. An excellent read, and thoroughly recommended.