Living Sacrifice

by Pastor C.W. Mayberry

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.

Romans 12:1

The principle expressed in this verse is almost completely foreign to the modern “church”.

The desire of the average church attendee is to be served, not to serve. It is to receive, not to give or impart anything of spiritual significance to another.

The idea of sacrifice is abhorrent. They come to get, not to surrender their precious resources of time and energy. If they can’t realize a profit of some sort they just aren’t interested.

The idea of suffering loss willingly for the benefit of others is detestable.

Does this describe you? That can be a hard mirror to look into.

Strange that so many “Christians” would feel this way when selfless sacrifice is the hallmark characteristic of Yeshua.

Think about it. He was up early to pray, often hours before dawn. He spent the majority of many nights in prayer.

He gathered nothing for himself, pouring everything he was into the mission with no thought of the morrow.

One thing is certain, we will all die at some point. This opportunity we call life will have slipped away.

The reckoning of our days before God will have been filled by something. Some pursuit, some desire.

What will it be? What will that look like?

This life was given to us as a space in which to prepare to meet the God of creation.

The expectation of that God is that we, His creation, spent our time building a relationship with Him – to know him and make him known.

It is understandable that we must provide for ourselves and our families but why are so many who call themselves His always looking for the next elevation on the socioeconomic ladder?

What is the appeal of chasing after the next big thing?

Especially when the bar is always moved just out of their reach.

The truth is people are more enamored with this present world than they are with the next.

And it’s easy to do – everyone does it at some time.

We say that we love Yeshua. We say that we are waiting with expectation on the sound of the trumpet and the coming of the kingdom of God.

But the world beckons, always making promises it will never fulfill.

But if we are indeed expecting the sound of the trumpet and the coming kingdom of God, then why do we pour our time and energy into temporal things?

Why do we spend more time on entertainment than we do in prayer?

Why do we endlessly scroll through social media sites while our Bibles collect dust?

 Why are we more concerned with our next vacation than we are bringing the truth to the broken families that fill our neighborhoods?

We sing songs about making war on the enemy and delivering captives, but the prayer closet is empty for days uncounted.

Where is the intercessor? Where is the prayer warrior? Where is the man or the woman that would press in until the walls of the prison of souls are breached?

Faith in Yeshua is not a part-time business. It is a full-time occupation.

Do we really believe that hell is real? That the outcome of this life is eternal. Do we believe that peace and joy are of greater value than gold.

Do we believe that the manifest presence of the living God should be our primary desire in life?

So many don’t act like it. They may say the words, but their actions don’t line up. They rush in and out of service as if it were an obligation and not a precious privilege.

They encumber themselves with debts that require them to work away the finite hours of their lives for things that will eventually wind up on the trash heap. All of this while the desperate call of a lost and dying world goes unanswered.

You may believe all of this is the responsibility of the pastor or the missionary. You have been deceived.

The expectation of the one who called you is that you walk as He walked, that you live as He lived.

Perhaps Yeshua was just a fool. He had no retirement plan, no savings, and nothing prepared for the day of hardship.

I could have laden this message with a mountain of verse to support each and every point but you either know these things are truth or you do not.

Your life, your time, your passion are all irreplaceable. They are finite. Yehova has given you a treasure called LIFE. What will you spend it on? Upon whose altar will you sacrifice it?

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