Most Christians are willing to do anything for God, unless it’s going to cost them something.
There is a way of life in which our Lord has called us to live that walks in sacrificial living. It is a higher faith that He has called us to walk in, and it is a life we were meant to have. No Christian is exempt from this calling, yet far too few Christians will ever get there.
There’s a whole new life for you when once you’ve given it to God. “…present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God…” (Romans 12:1 NKJV).
A life sacrificed is a life useful to the Lord and all He is doing. The sacrifice is giving up the right to yourself and giving God the right to do with you as He pleases. It often must come after a great trial in which you have reached the end of yourself, and the Lord is all you have.
Once you give up the right to yourself, it is there that Christ can use you. “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me’” (Matthew 16:24 NKJV).
In our worldly self, we think sacrificing our life is a great loss. We think of the things and the pleasures the Lord may ask us to give up. Yet, all the while, the Lord is preparing to set us free from those things that can never satisfy us and only prevent us from becoming who we were meant to be.
There is freedom in the sacrifice. In whatever you sacrifice unto the Lord, the sacrifice no longer has you. “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5 NKJV).
The worldly church rarely teaches true sacrificial living because it fears it will lose the following and the funds. The worldly Christians in our day don’t want to hear the truth of Scripture but a cherry-picked, watered-down version that makes them feel comfortable in their own skin.
Secular Christianity focuses on the gains for man and not the sacrifices for heaven. “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27 NASB).
The problem with preaching to the flesh is you satisfy the flesh, and the spirit of a Christian is left lacking. The more the message pleases the flesh, the less it can do to grow the spiritual life of a Christian. What we need is to teach the truth and let the numbers in our church be what they will.
The flesh interprets Scripture to satisfy its own desires. “For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold” (2 Timothy 4:3 AMP).
What we need to hear, and what we need to do, is live the truth aligned with Holy Scripture. When we die to ourselves and Christ comes alive in us, our lives will have a divine purpose. Where we find the freedom in surrender and then see the bondage of the world and thank our Lord for His leading.
Nobody can touch those things you have sacrificed unto the Lord, including your own life. “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:2-3 NKJV).
The sacrificial life does not give to get but only gives regardless of the outcome. Where the motives are pure, the heart is no longer selfish, and God is the only thing you need in the end. It is a life of serving and giving where you can pour out and yet always be full.
The more you pour out, the more full you will be. “Do not forget to do good and to help one another, because these are the sacrifices that please God.” (Hebrews 13:16 GNT).
The sacrificial life does not fast to gain but to lose, where the loss is the reign of one’s own flesh. Where the fast is unto God, and the only gain is to be nearer to Him. When your fast is in secret, and your fast is with pure motives, only then will it be pleasing to the Lord.
Never fast to gain, but to lose. The loss is you. And when you do it with the right intentions, only to lose, then you gain none other than Christ in you. “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?’” (Zechariah 7:5 NKJV).
The sacrificial life will be a life of obedience, not to earn salvation but to walk as someone who has received salvation. When you sacrifice your rights, you gain privileges and can walk as the heir to His kingdom. You are His son or daughter and need to act like it.
Be the sacrifice, and then you will have nothing to lose. “…present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1 NKJV).
Blessings to you,
Paul Balius
Often the value of a thing is determined by its cost. The mite cast into the treasury was little in man’s estimation… yet the living Christ knew its worth for it was all she had. May we give all…
BT
Such a good word, Brian! How much we need to learn that we cannot out-give God. As hard as we might be willing to try, what He gives us will eternally outweigh anything we might give up for Him.
Once more thank you so much brother Paul for opening my eyes to the depths of God’s Word. It is always such a blessing to meditate on the scriptures you give and your personal revelation of them.
This is a fundamental revelation for us, to honor and adore Him as “a living sacrifice”.
May the Lord keep using you in a mighty and profound way.
Again, very blessed!
Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words! It is such a joy to get such encouragement. It lifts me up so much! I have been pouring into my next book and these weekly blogs are also my blessed passion the Lord allows me to do. I pray that God is pouring into and through you to those around you. Blessings to you! Paul