Living Sacrifice part 1
The idea of sacrifice is pretty important to this "Christian" way of life, isn't it? (And, yes, I put "Christian" in quotation marks because I don't like the religious connotation that term seems to bring with it. When you say that you're a Christian it seems to me that people immediately roll their eyes and look at your like you're a hypocrite. So. Yeah.) Jesus sacrificed His life for us. Gave it for us, and to us. Told us that the greatest love a man can have is to lay his life down for his friends... and then literally went to the cross and laid His life down for us. Told us that we ought to love one another as He loves us. Told us that we would do all the works He did AND greater works. Love is giving. That's what I'm trying to say. Giving everything you have and everything you are. Giving your life for people. But while that might sometimes mean literally dying for people... also look at Romans 12:1, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Did you catch that? Paul is beseeching us to present ourselves as LIVING sacrifices. Emphasis on living. Look at John 10:10, which is one of my favorite memory verses, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." I think religious folk fixate upon the afterlife, at the expense of... life. Jesus was all about life. He didn't come to make sure we got to heaven when we died. He came to bring heaven to us so that we could experience heaven while we're alive! The days of heaven on earth. It's available right now. We can enjoy it right now. Abundant life. A life of love. And, again, since love is giving, it's a life of sacrifice. Not getting something... but giving what we've got. Jesus gave it all. Paid it all. Sacrificed it all. LIterally laid His life down, and then picked it back up again. So that we could have it. So that we could experience it to the fullest. Because if Jesus had just given His life to us... we probably would have flubbed it. Be honest. But since it is Jesus Himself living His own life in us, and through us, and as us... we have a blessed assurance that we will be able to enjoy the gift that we've been given. Here's what I'm trying to say: The best--really, the only--way to present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God is to live. Because to live is to love. And to love is to live. They aren't just connected. They are the same thing. You can't do one without the other and you can't have one without the other. A living sacrifice is a loving sacrifice. For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son. Jesus gave His life for us and to us because He loves us. Because He wanted us to have it. And He lives it in us, and through us, and as us because He wants us to experience what we've got. He doesn't want us to flub it. He wants us to experience it to the fullest. Abundantly. So He gave it all to us. So we could give it all to each other. We present ourselves to God by presenting ourselves to each other. We love God by loving each other. We live by living for and with each other!