Living Sacrifice

Everyone is offended these days. This year has been the ultimate epitome of the effects of offense. While no one should be going around trying to be offensive to the people around them, why is tolerance the only other option? For too long, our agenda has been “mind your own business” but now, that does not seem to be sufficient or quite effective. Our personal thoughts, ideas, and beliefs are all being challenged to the extreme. We are still free, right? Free to think, believe, and have freedom of speech? It seems as though if someone holds a different opinion than the general public, then they become the odd one out as well as the despised one. It seems the unpopular opinion has offended someone or another... However, with all that is going on, how is a Child of God supposed to function in a world where they are easily targeted for holding “offensive” views. This is through a life lived as a sacrifice. This means we are not to offend or even take offense!

As peacemakers, we need each other. We need community. We need the people around us to be there for our sake and we need to be there for their sakes, as well. This means we are to be Christlike in all our relationships. The perfect example is how God shows us through Scripture about how to be when invited to a vegetarian’s house. He emphasized how eating meat (though it is not a sin) can be portrayed as offensive when eating with a vegetarian. This is because the vegetarian friend truly believes that eating animals is wrong or that it is unnecessary. Therefore, when we are in their presence, despite our belief systems about meat-eating, we are to eat as they do, so that we may not offend them.

Romans 14: 20-23 suggests that we are to maintain peace and uphold each other through our actions in faith. It reads, “Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” According to Paul here, we know that he is suggesting that we maintain a lifestyle of grace through the rough stuff in order to make room for peace with our neighbors. This, however, does not look like tolerance, either.

Tolerance is never the approach Jesus communicated through the Bible. To the woman caught in the act of adultery, Jesus extended grace towards her. The angry crowd could not wait to stone her to death, but Jesus stood in the gap and rescued her. He forgave her and the crowd dropped their stones. After everybody left, Jesus turned to her and said “go and sin no more”. This is huge. Actually, this is everything. He rescued her, hid her shame, and set her free from captivity all in one. This is what Christ has done for us. If the woman had gone on to live in sin, she would not value the freedom and grace that she just experienced. I would say that the next time she gets caught in adultery, Jesus may not get to hand her the get-out-of-jail-free-card (because his actions seem like total injustice to the legalistic community waiting to trick him out of his divine calling).

In whichever situation or struggle you may be dealing with, realize that while sacrificial living does not sound very attractive, it is the concept we live under in the Kingdom of God. It actually sounds more restrictive than freeing, yet Kingdom Kind lifestyle is quite the oxymoron, in that we are living sacrificially. We are dying every day to the world outside of us and living for more of Christ inside of us. People often say that marriage is sacrifice or that having children is the life of sacrifice. I did not quite understand where they were coming from. To a single person, when hearing that marriage is sacrificial living, it sounds like a sucky situation. It sounded like a trap to me! However, as a married woman now, I see what they mean, and I was actually all wrong. You see, when you truly love someone, you will go out of your way for the person you love. We hear all these love songs about people committing to the dumbest things for the sake of love. While these catchy hits are almost never practical or wise, they do notion to the idealogy that we would go to the ends of the earth to do what we can for those we love. While you may not “catch a grenade” for the love of your life, you would still want to protect them from any possible harm coming their way. The same goes for the mother protecting her child. They would give up their time, energy, strength, and health for the betterment of the child’s future or welfare. This is the love of a parent – it is naturally prone to be that of sacrificial living.

When it comes to God being our Father, He made the ultimate sacrifice. With it being the first of December, the season of Christmas approaches us and we are constantly reminded during this time of the birth of Christ. He sent His Son, Jesus to us as the King. As God and Man and King, He took on the weight of our sin upon Himself and died on the cross. The story, thankfully, does not end there. He defeated the devil and was resurrected. In doing so, we are overcomers! We have overcome sin and are left to live freely for Him. It is not an easy calling, but it is the calling. A life lived in sacrifice looks like a life lived in response to the personal calling in each of our lives. When it is met with our purpose and uniquely designed destiny, it becomes our potential, instead of our happenstance. Be assured that our Father knows what is best for us, even better than what we know about ourselves!