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Thoughts of a saint and slave
by Sam Isaacson
'I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.' (Romans 12:1 ESV)
This verse has been quoted and used to challenge possibly more than any other in the Bible but there have always been questions in my mind surrounding this oxymoron 'living sacrifices'. Sacrifices are surely meant to be dead, and a number of times we are encouraged to die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31), take up our cross (Matthew 16:24) and be put to death all day long (Romans 8:36). Firstly I would like to say do not think this is a contradiction - James A. Fowler does a good study outline about why not at http://www.christinyou.net/pages/denyourselves.html but I will not cover that here.
My issues are with the phrase 'living sacrifice'. How are we meant to do this in our lives when the phrase itself doesn't really make that much sense? Animals, when sacrificed, are killed surely? Hopefully this study will encourage us to ensure that we are laying our lives down as living sacrifices in as practical a way as possible. When I was at school in Biology class I was taught a model, MRS. GREN, in which each letter stood for an action that every live thing must perform in order to prove that it is alive. The letters stand for: Movement, Reproduction, Sensitivity, Growth, Respiration, Excretion and Nutrition. I will deal with them (in reverse order - it's just easier that way!) and hopefully together we will be able to define what us as living sacrifices actually means. Although full sermons can be, and have been preached on for each of these points I will be keeping it brief (as brief as I can :-/).
Nutrition - Firstly we must be ensuring that we are feeding ourselves. In Luke 4:4 Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 that says man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We therefore should be 'eating the Word of God' on a daily basis to ensure that we are well fed, or we will die spiritually. Interestingly enough in John 4:34 Jesus says that his food is to do the will of His Father - we can actually feed ourselves by doing good works as well Neither of these are mutually exclusive however, and a balanced diet is important to stay healthy so both sides are needed.
Excretion - Secondly it is important that we purge our lives of anything that is hindering us. This means casting all our anxiety onto Him (Acts 5:7) and being released from worry but it also means being purified from the sin in our lives. By the power of the Holy Spirit we can overcome temptation and be rid of all our sins so let's strive together, pleasing God by becoming more and more like the spotless bride we will be one day!
Respiration - Thirdly as living creatures without breath we die; the Aramaic word ruach for breath is the same word as for Spirit, and so we can respond by inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives on a daily basis. In doing this we enable Him to bring the fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22), as well as such a variety of gifts to help us with every area of our lives.
Growth - Next is growth, as all living things grow. So must we, spiritually. I would encourage us all to keep some form of prayer diary to measure our progress - not because we are in competition but because we must be progressing in our relationships with God! If I do not spend time with my fiancée and do not encourage her and so on we can quickly see our relationship stagnate and become unappealing. Our relationship with God is the same; if we are spending time with Him and allowing Him to improve our relationship then He will, and we will recognise it. If we allow it to stagnate then we can very quickly backslide and lose many blessings along the way.
Sensitivity - We must also be very active to become more and more discerning in our lives. We have five senses to deal with physical situations but need to become sensitive spiritually, in order to detect temptation so we can flee from it (1 Timothy 6:11). We must also become sensitive to what the Father wants us to do so that we can ensure we are living in His will! Josh Harris preached two great sermons on discernment not too long ago, try finding them at http://www.covlife.org/sermons .
Reproduction - An extremely important part of being a true Christian is worshipping through evangelism - it's the only form of worship that we will not be able to do in heaven so let's make the most of it now! I heard a statistic recently published by the Roman Catholic church that Islam has now overtaken Roman Catholicism as the largest world religion, due to the fact that birth rates are so high in islamic nations. If we ever get to a point in our faith that we have to rely on how many children we have to measure our growth then we are entirely missing the point! Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship with God. You cannot be born into it and we must be those with an eternal mindset who can see the importance of seeing the world changed for Christ.
Movement - Finally as Christians we must be those who are always ready to be on the move. This means looking for new opportunities to spread the gospel, particularly to unreached people groups. It means searching for new ways to worship God and not becoming hooked on tradition for the sake of it. It means actively struggling against the world. A living sacrifice on an altar would be difficult to handle - it would keep climbing off and struggling against those who would have it sacrificed. In all things I would encourage us to remember the One who sacrificed Himself willingly on the cross so that we don't actually have to do any of this stuff. But we can and will, joyfully and for His glory!
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