A Living Sacrifice Part 1

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. Romans 12:1 NKJV

What is a living sacrifice? A sacrifice by definition is dead but God calls us to be a living sacrifice. Can a sacrifice be living and dead at the same time?

In the spiritual realm there are two powers. The first are the powers of darkness consisting of the Devil and his angels, the world, and our flesh, The second is God, consisting of the Trinity: the Father, Jehovah; His Son, Jesus and His Spirit.

The Devil and his angels appeal to our flesh through the attractions of the world. It seems as if our sinful desires, our selfishness, and our greed can be fulfilled by what the world offers.

Jehovah appeals to our spirit. Our deep inner self that longs to connect to something greater than ourselves. He promises deep, lasting, eternal fulfillment and he never breaks a single promise. We were created for this connection and we always function best when we are living as we were created to live.

We will serve one master or the other, but not both.

Since Adam and Eve ate of the fruit every one of us is born with a natural inclination to sin. Since no one is perfect; every one of us commits sin. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23).

Committing sin makes us servants of sin. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness (Romans 6:16)

Even though we are sinners by default we can make a choice to serve God, however; you cannot serve both. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24 There is no middle ground. We cannot serve both, neither can we be neutral. We will serve one or the other.

We can choose which we will serve.

God created man with a choice. We can chose to serve God or not. Because of Adam and Eve's choice in the garden the Devil is now our default master; so if you don't make a conscious decision to serve God that means you serve the Devil. You cannot be in between. But our awesome God has allowed us to make the decision to trust in the sacrifice of His Son on the cross and repent, turn from our sin and serve Him.

Thousands of years ago Joshua called the Israelites to make this decision and today each of us is still faced with the same choice. "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord , choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell." Joshua 24:15

#3 We are alive to whomever we are serving and dead to the other.

"Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin [and your relationship to it broken], but alive to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:11 AMP)

We have established that we will serve one and only one of two and only two master and that we can decide which master that will be. By definition a master has the power to tell us what to do and we must obey. But when we chose the other master, the first no longer has control over us. The relationship is broken. We are dead to the first master and we become alive to the second master. Now our new master has the power to direct our lives.

The devil appeals to our flesh, telling us to use our bodies to do the things that feel good. He tells us to look after ourselves first and ignore other people.

Jehovah asks us to use our bodies to fulfil his purposes here on earth, to be his hands and feet. He asks us to disregard our own comforts and allow him to use us.

#4 A living sacrifice.

So then, what is a living sacrifice? When a person makes a conscious decision to follow Jehovah his Spirit connects with Christ and the Spirit of God breathes life into the spirit of that person and he becomes alive to Jehovah. This relationship requires the flesh to be crucified. As the flesh dies the empty promises of the world begin to lose their attraction and therefore the power of the Devil is gone, vanquished by the deep fulfilment of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The sacrifice then is the giving up of our fleshly desires and our selfish wants. The life is in our spirit, made alive by the Spirit of God. A living spirit but a sacrificed fleshly body that can be used by God to do His will here on earth. This then is a living sacrifice.