A Living Sacrifice

The idea of a living sacrifice has been on my mind a lot lately. The Bible mentions it, but we don't tend to think about it too much nowadays. Could it be because none of us like the word "sacrifice?"

Romans 12: 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

What does that mean? They sacrificed a lot in the Old Testament. There were all kinds of sacrifices, all requiring the death of an animal. The slain animal would be lain on the altar, and you know what? It stayed there! Imagine that. Well, of course it did. It was dead.

God wants us to present our bodies a living sacrifice. That means putting ourselves, our dreams, wishes, wants, desires........all of it, on the altar along with our bodies. Our problem is, all too often we get up and walk off. Life gets rough, God doesn't seem to be doing for us what we want, so we get up and go do our own thing.

Life isn't perfect. In fact sometimes, it downright stinks. Days, weeks, months......and sometimes even years, go by and it seems like nothing goes right. Anyone who says being a Christian is easy should be taken out and slapped silly. It does seem that others have it so easy, but that isn't always the case.

One of my friends, who truth be told, I have both envied and admired, just seemed to have it all. One of those guys who seems to be good at anything he tries. I have actually wished I could be him. He seems to have it so easy. Or so I thought. In recent months, I have found out he has his own personal hell. I no longer envy him, but feel bad for his situation, and find myself praying he will make it trough his battles.

I sit in church and look around, and wonder if anyone there ever has a problem. At times, I feel I hardly belong with all of those seemingly perfect Christians. I find myself thinking, if they could see the real me, no one would like me. And yet, I'd probably be surprised at what some of my fellow church members are going through and battling.

We can't pick our battles. Sometimes life just throws something at us and we can't deal with it, so we crawl off the altar, and instead of hanging onto God for dear life, we deal with it in other ways. An affair, drugs, smoking, pornography. We justify our sin by saying how rough we have it. We don't say it out loud, but our attitude says it for us. God isn't enough. He isn't fair, and I didn't sign up for this. I have done it. I have sang "I Surrender All," thrown myself on the altar, and told God He could have it all. And there I lay. For a few weeks, months, sometimes a year...but then the trials would come. The temptations. The battle got too fierce, and I would crawl off the altar and go back to my old habits. After all, they never let me down.

As hard as the concept is to grasp and live by, God wants it all. Not just our bank account and our material possessions. He wants our will. That doesn't mean we do what He wants when it suits us, or when it is easy. It means we always do His will. No matter how hard life gets. No matter how unfair life is, or how unfair God seems.

I have turned into quite the preacher lately. This is not original by any means, and I need the "sermon" as much as the next guy, but I recently was talking to someone along this very line. I told him that when we face God at the judgement, our little petty excuses aren't going to matter one iota. Telling Him how rough we had it and say we had to pick up that sin or bad habit to help us get through a rough time, isn't going to cut it. A life full of battles and trials down here, will not give us a free pass to Heaven if we tried to deal with life in ways that we knew were wrong.

I have my battles. There have been days that I wished I could just die, instead of having to face the same battles all over again. There have been times that I gave in and tried to ease my stress and problems by doing something that I knew was wrong. Yet all God wants is for me to serve Him no matter what. To stay on that altar, no matter how rough the battle gets.