What is a sacrifice? The dictionary defines a religious sacrifice as anything consecrated or holy and offered to God. So in the old days and still today in some cultures people offer animals and kill them unto God.
Sacrifices are very important each time a person’s sacrifice is given unto God he receives a big reward. In the old testament we read on Noah, in Genesis 8 he built an altar to God and sacrificed every clean animal and bird, and God made a covenant with him never to destroy the entire earth again. In Genesis 22, Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac unto God and God made a covenant with him that his descendant will be great and as many as the star in the heaven. In 1 Samuel 1, Hannah was barren and made a vow to God that He gives a male child she will give him back to God, and God blessed her with Prophet Samuel. Also in 1 Kings 3. King Solomon sacrificed a thousand animals to the Lord, and God appeared to him and asked him to request for anything he wanted and it would be granted.
So God honors and rewards sacrifice, it is a secret way of getting blessing from God. Jesus Christ came as the perfect sacrifice, because He was without sin and He was killed for us, so that by believing in Him we can obtain mercy and favor from God without killing animals again.
So the traditional way of sacrificing animals have changed and the bible says in Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
God wants you to be the sacrifice, but this time not a dead or burnt sacrifice, but a living sacrifice. How can you be a living sacrifice? Still Romans 12:1 but the Message translation, “So here is what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Do not become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.”
So you are a living sacrifice when you please God in everything you do, while working , talking, eating, sleeping, relaxing, you have to glory God. A living sacrifice is not conformed to this world, meaning you will not go with the crowd when they are wrong, you will not adjust to suit what you know does not please God because most people are doing it. Rather you will be transformed by obeying the word of God.
The life you live is a sacrifice unto God, living humbly, helping and giving others, avoiding sin, worshiping, all these make you a living sacrifice. If people cannot see God in the way you live then you are not a living sacrifice, so many people claim to be Christians but do not follow the ways of Christ, whereby the very word Christian means a Christ follower, so how can you be a Christian when you do not follow Christs ways as stated in the Bible. So I encourage you to present yourself as a living sacrifice and you will receive great rewards from God. Have a blessed day.
