Living Sacrifice

Someone was once talking to me about Romans 12:1-2 and being a living sacrifice.  As this person continued to talk, I could tell that this person did not grow up in the country or on a farm because this person was “romanticizing” what it meant to be a living sacrifice.

My grandfather lived next door to us as I was growing up and he raised chickens and pigs.  I have memories of what it was for these animals to be sacrificed for the family.  So when the Apostle Paul tells the Romans to be “living sacrifices,” it sends chills up and down my spine.  When Paul uses this metaphor, a living sacrifice is something that is not attractive nor is something that I am eager and willing to do.

However, when I stop cringing and open my eyes, I notice Paul pointing to Jesus as he starts off with, “In view of God’s mercy…” (Romans 12:1)  Instead of hearing Scripture demand that I be blindly obedient; or the apostle sugar coat the request that I be led to the slaughter ignorantly, I hear Paul pleading with me for being a willing sacrifice is quite reasonable.

I never heard Jesus say to the Father, “…a body You have prepared for Me…”  Yet, this is what the Hebrew writer claims Jesus said.  In fact, this is what the Hebrew writer said Jesus proclaimed:

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,

But a body you prepared for me;

With burnt offerings and sin offerings

You were not pleased.

Then I said, “Here am I—

it is written about me in the scroll—

I have come to do Your will, My God.”

—Hebrews 10:5-7

Paul may not have been the author of Hebrews, but I think this is what Paul had in mind when he urged the Romans to be living sacrifices.  I think this is Paul’s intention for all God’s people as Paul repeats this message throughout all his epistles.  Read Philippians 2.  Let me start you off—

Let this mind which was in Christ Jesus, be also in you…