Sacrifice part 3
True love is sacrifical love. Laying down your life for your friends. This is what Jesus literally did on the cross. And it's what we do every time we esteem someone else higher than ourselves. 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." That phrase is interesting to me, and very important. A LIVING sacrifice. Because, as we saw yesterday, God doesn't NEED anything from you. He doesn't need your life. In fact, He gave you HIS life. He doesn't want you to die for Him, He wants you to live for Him! And, again, we live for Him by living for each other. We love Him by loving each other. We present our bodies as a living sacrifice to Him by sacrificing for each other. By meeting the needs of each other. Taking care of each other. Let me ask you this? Bottom line, end of the day, what's acceptable to God? Obeying the New Commandment, right? Loving others as God loves us, right? Receiving and releasing the gift of God that IS eternal life! So when we think about this kind of sacrifical love, when we think about paying the price, it's not a burden. It's our REASONABLE service. I preach and Rant a lot about executing the judgment (of life) that was handed down from Father to Son on the cross. And in the book of Psalms we see that executing this judgment is an honor. So many times I see "religious folk" carry (or drag) the idea of God around like a ball and chain. It seems to weigh them down and they certainly don't get any joy out of people. People who don't know who they are and are struggling to "deny themselves" and be someone they're not. That's not life. That's absolutely not ABUNDANT life! I'm telling you... even though love is a sacrifice, when you truly know how loved you are it's the easiest thing in the world to do. We don't present ourselves as a living sacrifice because we're afraid of the consequences if we don't. We present ourselves as a living sacrifice because what we have is to good to keep to ourselves. We are filled to overflowing with God's love--with God!--and we couldn't keep it to ourselves if we tried. That's why it's our reasonable service. Because it's the most natural thing in the world. Before the cross, we had this selfish, soulish, beast nature. We didn't know what we had so we tried to get everything we could. We looked for love in all the wrong places because we didn't know where the source was. WHO the source was. But now, on this side of the cross, we don't have a beast nature. We have a love nature. We know what we've got, and instead of thinking it's too good to be true, we know that it's so good it must be true! And it's so good that we must share it. Because it's what everybody--EVERYBODY--needs. Because it's love. We have it, and it's our reasonable service to share it. It's not a burden to share it. It's not hard to share it. There's a cost attached, and we'll look at that cost in depth tomorrow, but it's a small price to pay. It's a living sacrifice because it's all about life. All about light. All about love!