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The Sacrifice of Ourselves

by Jerry Ousley
3/16/2018 / Christian Living

Sacrifice comes when we give up something we hold dear to ourselves to bring benefit to another. Some things we sacrifice are very trivial compared to the sacrifices others have made. There are those who have even sacrificed their own lives for others or for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But as great as this kind of sacrifice may be it still pales in comparison to what Jesus did for us.

Jesus Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for our sin. But He became victorious because of His resurrection. Still, there is a sacrifice required by us. We have already established, when looking at the sacrifices of the Old Testament that the burnt offering, the sin offering and the peace offering ware all done by Jesus.

There were two offerings which represent things we are to do. I know that we preach and teach that there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. That is still true. Again, Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice as represented in the burnt, sin and peace offerings mentioned before. These are the ones that actually paid for our salvation. Only by accepting the sacrifice Christ made for us can we be saved. These two that we must do are represented in the meal offering and the incense offering. The meal offering was just that; an offering of meal ground from the grain of the fields and offered along with the other offerings. It was the offering of an inferior to a superior. Our meal offering can only be of ourselves to God, for through Christ He has already done everything needed to pay for our debt of sin. The other offering is the incense offering which represents our praise and worship of Him and what He has done.

So here’s the scenario. Jesus Christ became our sin offering, our burnt offering, and the peace offering needed to restore the broken relationship between God and man. Adam caused all of this when he sinned in the Garden of Eden. That sin has been inherited and actually recreated in each one of us because we are born into a cursed world. We would do the same thing Adam had done. It isn’t just Adam’s fault but it is ours as well because given the chance we would have done the same thing and in essence have sinned against God on our own, so we can’t blame it all on Adam.

In order for the sacrifice of Christ to become effective for us we have to acknowledge what He has done, accept it as being done in our place, and receive it humbly telling God we are sorry for our sin. Then we make a complete turn in our life by doing what we know Christ would do from that day forward. If we continue in sin then we haven’t really believed. If we say that He has done it all and then just go on without any change in our life then we haven’t really applied His sacrifice. We must become new creations in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17) showing that we have applied His sacrifice to our lives. This becomes our meal offering. In today’s world we have told people that if they simply confess that they are a sinner, acknowledge what Jesus has done for us in His own sacrifices, then that act makes us saved. But I have often wondered if we shouldn’t really be going back to the old “praying through” concept. I am not suggesting that we pound the altar and cry out in great sobs of weeping in order to do our penance but I am saying that perhaps just a few simple words, though when truly meant from the heart do make a difference, really doesn’t get the job done. You see, when we “pray through” we are not only asking God to forgive us but we also must convince ourselves that we have really been forgiven. We need assurance inside us that God has made a change in us, and that we have become new creations. We need to know for ourselves not just because someone has told us that it has happened. We could inherit a million dollars and someone tell us that it is ours but until we see the money or at least proof of the money and maybe even spend some of it do we really know for sure that it has happened? It is the same with praying through; we need more than just the word of someone else; we need to see proof of it in our lives. We need a basis to believe it has taken place.

Then once we have come to the Lord in true repentance and know we have been saved and we have presented our meal offering from the inferior (that’s us) to the superior (that’s God), then we need to give our other sacrifice, that of the incense offering. We need to begin to praise and worship our Savior. When we realize the true calamity we have been saved from, the curse of eternal death in hell and the Lake of Fire, then it becomes easy to fall down in worship to God. That is our offering. Romans 12:1-2 tells us “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. 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.” Our sacrifice is not to be one of physical dying but of a living sacrifice as represented with the meal and incense offerings. No animal had to give its life for these offerings. And they very adequately represent our reasonable service to the King of kings.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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