SACRIFICE

Sacrifice is not how The Plan started out, but Sacrifice was soon to come after obedience had been violated. Humans had one rule to abide by in the beginning, then the Serpent, also known as the devil, came along and deceptively convinced Adam and Eve that God did not mean what He said.

"And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'” - Genesis 2:16-17

We had one rule to follow and could not get that right! Since then, our nature has been to set-up and follow our own rules and regulations on how to live life. I believe this is a big reason why God called a specific people out of all the nations, the Hebrews, and gave them an impossible Instruction Manuel to Life - The Law. In addition, the sacrificial system was established but not because God liked it, but because The Law had been given to follow.

Samuel says, "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams." (1 Samuel 15:22). Stated another way - If you stay in obedience to me, which I prefer, you will not find yourselves sacrificing any burnt offerings or fat of rams.

However, as we know, there is only one person in all of history that can and did follow every letter of The Law - Christ Jesus. There was no way humanity was going to be able to dot every "i" and cross every "t" to the commands in The Law. And so that we would have freedom from that endless imprisonment, Christ was the Sacrifice required by The Law in order that He might bring in a new Law of The Spirit (Romans 6).

With this new Law of the Spirit, obedience and sacrifice are still vital parts to God's plan for our lives. John emphasizes this by stating what Christ did for us and in essence exemplified for our replication.

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." (1 John 3:16)

Notice Christ laid down His life first for us and for His disciples on a daily basis by providing teaching, food at times, protection, direction and so forth. Then ultimately He laid His life down unto death for our redemption to Father God. In fact, John speaks up again and records Jesus speaking on this as Christ said,

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (John 15:13)

However, Paul takes "laying down one's life" a step further than "one's friends" in Ephesians 5:25. Paul challenges the Godly husband to be prepared to literally give your life up for your wife.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..."

Believers in Christ have been called to obey, we have been called to serve and we have been called to Sacrifice. In the beginning if we just obeyed we might starve off the sacrifice part of life. But now, obeying God's Word and living the sacrificial servant's life He exemplified are both part of living the Christian lifestyle. If God was willing to sit down before creation and consider the cost of the sacrifice He would pay for all of humanity in all of history, then surely we can practice loving friends, loving family, loving God with Sacrifice.

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