A Life Of Sacrifice 

By Susie Peters:

Sacrifice isn’t a particularly popular idea in our culture. Perhaps the time it is most celebrated is on Remembrance day, which we marked last week. We honour those who have given up their freedom and often their life for a bigger purpose. Otherwise, the whole idea of making sacrifices in our daily life, big or small, isn’t seen as something desirable. Instead, the message is ‘have it all – make a name for yourself – build your career – your family – your ideal life’. We want to have it all but we prefer not to pay for it.

Now I’m a mother. I realise how many sacrifices my parents made out of love for me, something I didn’t always appreciate at the time! But it’s a struggle to choose others' needs before your own, isn’t it?

Putting others first may not be popular and certainly doesn’t come naturally, but it is the way of a Christian. Paul writes in Romans 12:1: ‘in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship’. Where the vast majority of biblical references to sacrifice are in the Old Testament, God chose to send Jesus, his only Son as the ultimate sacrifice for us. So now we do not need to make any sacrifices for our sins, but instead our whole lives are to become living sacrifices to honour God.

It's hard to fully understand the phrase ‘a living sacrifice’ – even in Old Testament times it would be a contradiction in terms - the whole point of the sacrifice was that it was killed! Now God wants us to remain living, but to sacrifice all of our lives to Him. That is pretty radical! As Eugene Peterson translates it in The Message, ‘Take your every day, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering’.

It’s such a challenge, but it has made me think, what would that mean if each of us was to give up our time, ambitions, possessions as well as our mind, attitudes and emotions to live for God and for others? What would happen if we were to offer everything to God every morning in prayer, asking Him not ‘what should I do with my time today, how should I view the other mums I meet or the person next to me on the bus?’ When we give up our lives in this way, then God has room to move, to work in us and through us in the most miraculous ways.

You see, when we give up control of our lives and ask God to take control, that is the best sacrifice we can make. Much greater than anything we could do for our country or family member. God honours our humility and responds with lavish love and kindness to those who choose to give up their lives instead of strive for their own success.

As Jesus says in Matthew 10:39: ‘Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.’