Ephesians 5:1-2
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Giving yourself (paradidomi). That one Greek word lies at the very center of what it means to be a follower of Christ. The Lord calls you to give yourself to him as a living sacrifice and as an act of worship. The Lord also calls you to give yourself to others as an act of love. In big things and in little things. Every day, in everything you do.
Jesus, of course, has the right to make that demand because he gave himself for us.
In the OT law, God commanded the people of Israel to offer animal sacrifices as atonement for their sin. Because the price of sin is death, the sacrifices served as a way for believers to come before God and acknowledge their sin and express their repentance. It was also a way to symbolically display that atoning for sin is costly.
The sacrifices were intended to be an outward representation of the inward heart of the believer. That means that the sacrifice that is pleasing to God is not animal sacrifice, but a heart of repentance and humble obedience. If OT believers gave a sacrifice to God but did not give themselves to God, then the Lord was not pleased.
Note the following verses where God admonishes the Israelites for offering sacrifices without obedient hearts. God’s message is: “Give me your heart, give me yourself, and then I know that your sacrifices will follow. But do not give me your sacrifices without giving me yourself.”
Without giving of oneself, without paradidomi, the animal sacrifices meant nothing. In the following OT verses, you can hear and feel God’s emotion as he admonishes Israel for sacrificing animals without giving themselves.
Isaiah 1.11-17: “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats…”.
Amos 5.21-24: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
Micah 6.6: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
It is for this reason in the NT that Paul admonishes us to give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. Jesus gave himself to God as a living sacrifice for us. He now asks us to respond and give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice for him.
As I did yesterday, I finish again today with Romans 12.1-2:
“I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
May each day be a day of self-giving to the Lord and his kingdom purposes in our lives and through our lives.
