When we hear the words, offer your bodies, and sacrifice, we automatically draw our own conclusion.
I’ll offer my own body as a sacrifice means that I’ll get up and come to the women’s fellowship even though it’s raining. Or maybe you think sacrifice is coming to church on a Sunday when it’s 90 degrees outside and you’d rather be at the beach.
We think that’s what sacrifice is, but we don’t really understand what it really means. We’re still thinking it’s a works mentality. We understand sacrifice like the people in the first century, whom the Apostle Paul was writing to.
They were familiar with sacrifices.
They knew what offering a sacrifice was.
It was standard.
It was religious ritual.
It was the way they worshipped.
First century believers stood at an altar year after year, bringing their unblemished lamb, knowing full well that that lamb was taking their place. The lamb was the substitute. When they brought that lamb to the altar, the priest laid hands on the lamb to transfer the guilt of the person on to that lamb. Then, the priest would put the lamb up on the altar of sacrifice, slit its neck, and take its insides out.
They watched the blood spilled on the altar for their sins. They knew the full implications of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). For first century believers, it was a lot easier for them to understand that Jesus was the propitiation for their sins. He was the one who stood in. He filled in, like a substitute teacher—if that’s how we can understand it.
He filled in for them.
It wasn’t hard for first century believers to understand being born again. They knew what it meant to have somebody else pay the price.
Question: What do you find is most difficult thing in offering your bodies as a sacrifice to God?
(Copyright © 2015 by Maria Durso, All Rights Reserved. Purchase a copy of my book, From Your Head to Your Heart, on Amazon here).
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