Living Sacrifice Romans 12:1

Today my hubby is blogging for us. This man of mine has “stuck” with me through it all. He not only dealt with all of the financial side of cancer medical bills (that included setting the hospital billing department correct when they accidently coded my cancer debulking surgery/hysterectomy as an infant delivery–HA!), he attended every doctor appointment and chemo, and helped me get through the ramifications of chemo afterwards. He has also helped parent our kids through many difficult moments and has grown through the trials. I have watched his empathy levels increase with every trial/hurdle we have faced. He loves us well and has held me up while he walked beside me for the last 3+ years of our cancer journey. The Lord has been so sweet to me to bless me with this man. Listen to his words as he explains what he has learned first-hand and by walking by my side.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Rom 12:1 ESV)

Would you like to be perfect?  Most of us would agree that the Apostle Paul had it together after he came to know Christ.  However, even Paul wrote, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.  Instead, I do what I hate.” (Rom 7:15 NLT)  Even though we, like Paul, know will never reach this goal until our life on earth is over, it is still a goal that we should and do desire to work towards throughout our lives.

One of Julie’s FaceBook friends and sister in Christ recently shared a song.  The video performance of the song is at the bottom of this message and I strongly urge you to listen to it if you haven’t already.  The song is Refiner by Chandler Moore and Steffany Gretzinger as performed at Maverick City Music song share night in Atlanta in 1971.  This song had me sitting in tears because for the first time in my Christian walk I began to grasp the full meaning behind Romans 12:1.  I had always thought of putting aside my desires to be obedient to God and to live a holy life as the meaning of being a living sacrifice.  It is that, but it is so much more.

The process of smelting precious metals is the process where the refiner exposes the precious metal with its impurities (also called dross) to an extreme heat.  The purpose of the extreme heat is to burn up the impurities, leaving only the precious metal behind.  Are we not more precious to God than silver or gold?  Like a refiner would remove the impurities of the precious metals, God sometimes places us in circumstances that we don’t understand and couldn’t handle on our own.  It is through these circumstances that the dross in our lives is burned up and we are left more pure and more precious.  I Peter 1: 6-7 says it this way,

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold–though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. (1Pe 1:6-7 NLT)

So what does refining, trials, etc. have to do with being a living sacrifice?  I am glad you asked….  Think about the burnt offering (a sacrifice).  The law demanded that the best animal (one without blemish) must be used for the sacrifice.  This means that the animal with the fewest impurities was required.  However, the fire would completely consume the animal, showing that even though it was the most pure, it was still full of impurities.  The reasons why the burnt offering had to be repeated – the person offering the sacrifice was not perfect and the offering itself was not perfect.  On the day we submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and trust in him for eternal life, his sacrifice on the cross (a perfect person offering a perfect sacrifice!) becomes our offering as far as meeting the demands of a holy God – one final offering.  However, we continue to have sin and other impurities in our lives.  From that day and continuing until the day we are no longer alive on this earth God works in our lives to remove impurities from our lives and to make us more holy (this is called sanctification).  That work is completed when we leave this world and enter heaven because of the work of Christ on the cross.  At times, the Holy Spirit uses a still small voice to reveal impurities and empowers us to overcome those temptations without a trial.  At other times, we are submitted to trials much like a refiner submits his precious metal to a fire to remove the impurities.  At yet other times, we are submitted to trials so that we see that our faith remains strong and we will know that we are becoming more holy (see 1 Peter 1:6-7 and James 1:2-4).

So next time you are telling someone, “God has a wonderful plan for you….”, remember He does have a wonderful plan for you and it is not always things going your way or not experiencing any problems.  Even though this wonderful life is not what we might think, it is so much more wonderful than we could ever imagine because it means we get to spend eternity in the presence of God.  The problems you and I experience are sometimes part of the plan to make us into who we were created to be. Romans 12:1 tells us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice to be tried by fire. This bursts the bubble of the easy believism version of Christianity — it is not easy going through the fire, but it is so worth it!

Ben