A Sacrifice

 DEVOTION

TO HEBREWS

A SACRIFICE

Heb 11:17-19

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."   19 Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

NIV

This whole account of when God asked Abraham to offer his one and only son, was a foreshadowing of God offering his one and only Son. We know that Isaac carried the wood for the altar up to the top of Mt Moriah, just as Jesus carried his wood on that very same Mt Moriah, for that is where the city of Jerusalem was built many years after Abraham and Isaac were there and where the blood was spilled. First from a ram, last from the Lamb of God. It is interesting the Hebrew word translated as ram, means strength, anything strong, a chief, a ram. While Jesus was represented as a lamb, which is the opposite of strong, anything strong, a chief, Although Jesus is the Chief of chiefs, King of kings, and Lord of lords, he was sacrificed as quite as the Lamb of God. This comes down to what we are supposed to sacrifice, and we know the answer. We are urged to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. That is our spiritual act of worship. It does seem strange to speak of our bodies as a spiritual act of worship. This Greek word sooma is used in a wide sense, meaning it could mean the whole of us, in our whole being, or as Paul uses it in the sense of the church, just a few verses after he urges us to present our whole being to God. So, what do we glean from all this that is relevant to our lives. We think the point is that we should be as willing as Abraham was to offer that which is the dearest to us to God. Although, we could see some physical or material things as important to us, in fact, in some sense we hoard them, but in the grand scheme of things, all that is material will fade away, or rather we will fade away from them, leaving them all behind as we are gathered onto God. The only thing we have that will someday be eternal is our “Self”, our whole being, that is the thing we are asked to offer to God and do so while we are still living. All the sacrifices under the old Covenant were killed, but under the new covenant, the only acceptable sacrifice is a living one, our whole being. That is our spiritual act of worship. Under the old covenant, it was a physical act of worship, but under the new, it is a spiritual act of worship. Let us present ourselves to God, with all our flaws, allowing Him to have full access to every fiber of our being, so that He who started this work in us, will be the one who finishes all the work within us. No effect on our part is required, we cannot make ourselves anything worthy enough for God. Anything that we do not do, or what we think we should do, cannot supply what is needed to be the acceptable sacrifice.  All we can do is offer ourselves to him so that He can do all that is needed within us, as a living sacrifice.