Are You a Living Sacrifice?

In Romans 12 the tone of Paul’s letter changes. He begins to move away from a letter grounded in theology to one grounded in action. Now, these two are connected…right theology leads to right action; but the focus is different. In the first paragraph we see a call to radical sacrifice: 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. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. I’m quite sure that Paul’s readers in the first century would have read that first sentence with a bit more passion than we read it today. Many of them would have been familiar with the Jewish sacrificial system and other worship traditions which involved animal sacrifice. Paul calls the follower of Jesus to be a “living sacrifice”. The idea is that we set aside our lives…literally offering them to God for His use and purpose. This command goes along with the message of the New Testament that the follower of Jesus has “died” to this world. I think this is one of the reasons that Paul refers to this as “reasonable service”. The follower of Jesus has been granted a reprieve from the present and eternal sting of death. The only reasonable service is to offer our lives to Him.

But this is not always easy…maybe better, it is not EVER easy. Someone has said that the problem with placing a living sacrifice on the altar is that it can crawl back down! We are all tempted to crawl back down. But being transformed by the renewing of our minds helps keep us on the altar. We are not going to remain on the altar if we have not been transformed. When we believe in our minds that offering ourselves is a reasonable service, then we will do it. This past Friday we had three Penn State football players at Buffalo Valley who all gave wonderful testimonies of God’s activity in their lives. I was particularly impressed with the attitude displayed by Brandon Smith, who spoke of how his perspective as a follower of Jesus and the importance of that, helps him keep everything else in life, even great disappointment on the football field, in perspective. Are you a living sacrifice…ready and EVEN eager to offer yourself each day for God’s service?