Sacrifice

Ever wondered how two people can sing the same song and one moves the crowd whereas the other appears completely ‘flat’ and ‘dry’?

 

Ever wondered how two people are teaching on the same topic and one is like a sleeping tablet while the other keeps you on the edge of your seat? Or you read two similar books and enjoy one yet can barely read a chapter on the other?

 

Ever wondered how some people have songs without content that are so popular while some have solid instruction but fail to hit the market?

 

I want us to realize that many times the difference is very simple; one offered a bigger or better sacrifice than the other. One invested more than the other. To one it was a hobby yet to the other it was life itself. One must do it but the other is so passionate about it that they will lose sleep, and many other things, over it.

 

But there is another aspect of this sacrifice I want to let us know; the spiritual sacrifice.

 

We hear of people who keep jinns to make and keep wealth and we know that keeping them is not an easy feat. We know that there are people who visit shrines and witches to get into elective positions and are sure that it is never a casual visit.

 

How badly you desire what you seek will determine the kind of sacrifice you are willing to offer.

 

We see flip plops in politics because a politician discovers that the sacrifice they offered is not sufficient to maintain or advance the position they sacrificed for. They must therefore look for someplace and something else to sacrifice, many times sacrificing who they are in desperation.

 

But it is not only in politics that it happens. It is only that the politician is most visible.

 

Look at entertainment for example. Remember the ‘Me Too’ movement? How many can honestly say that they attained stardom because they were good at their jobs, and only that? And you still see people wondering why marriage for many is such a tall order.

 

Yet it is in the spiritual I want us to look at. By the way even those other fields are spiritual. It is only that their performance is in the secular realm. Values come from the spiritual. I must therefore be spiritually corrupted before I give that bribe or give in to that sexual advance.

 

Your sacrifice determines your breakthrough.

 

Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land. (2Kings 3:27)

 

In this instance we have a king who has tried everything, every trick in the book, and became unsuccessful, completely unable to rescue himself or his city. He was practically between death and death whichever way he looked.

 

That is when he considered a sacrifice, and not a simple sacrifice. He gave the promise of the continuity of his kingdom to his gods for a burnt sacrifice. And even Israel could not counter that because the sacrifice inflamed everybody, from friend to foe.

 

An offering is not a sacrifice. Even the so touted tithe is nowhere close to a sacrifice.

 

In a sacrifice we are talking about a life and not a portion of the same.

 

Giving your earnings (e.g. a salary) is sacrificial. Giving your livelihood is close to what a sacrifice is.

 

In short, a sacrifice involves offering you and what makes you, you. It is giving all the security you have to the one you believe is in charge of your life because He does not need that security to keep you.

 

In any religion you look, a sacrifice involves the shedding and not the letting of blood. In short something must die for a sacrifice to occur, not just bleed.

 

Many times that is how the devil is able to get to us. He convinces us that our sacrifice is not much by blocking our eyes from seeing the extent of our sacrifice. Like he told Eve the promise of sin is better than the pain of judgment.

 

He even argues that you can repent later and grace will cover that sin.

 

Let us have some examples.

 

A girl needs good grades and the professor is a tyrant, an expert at failing students. But then she realizes that there are some other girls who always pass very well though they are not as bright or hardworking as she is.

 

On seeking to know why, she realizes that they offer extra services to the professor so that he can look at their papers favorably.

 

Now she has a choice. She is on the verge of repeating a class due to that (or those) lecturer(s).

 

What does she do between losing a year (or more for being stubborn) or become like the other girls?

 

In short, which sacrifice does she offer? Are there long-term repercussions for that decision?

 

Suppose she does what many are wont to do and pleases the professor for the grades? What will she have sacrificed apart from the few or many minutes she offers the professor?

 

She will have sacrificed who she was – her character and spiritual values. She will have sacrificed her marriage for those grades. She will have punctured her stamina to stand for what she believes. She has sacrificed her posterity.

 

In short, she has sacrificed herself. It will therefore be impossible for her to stand for anything properly since she had so ably demonstrated that she was for sale and that the difference was in how cheap or expensive she was.

 

Will she excel? Of course she will; but as a sellout. It will become easier and easier to get her to compromise this or the other for a reward. That is why we see very successful women playing the harlot with small boys even when they appear to have very solid marriages. That is why we see successful women killing or attempting to kill their husband of decades for one or the other reason. It is possible that they sold out early in life and so are subject to the sacrifice they offered.

 

And it is not only women who sacrifice. I have just picked one among very many examples.

 

Ever noticed that most ‘successful’ single mothers are bitter against men? Have you ever wondered why someone could hate all men to the point of calling them dogs?

 

Let me explain what I think happens.

 

A lady thinks that the marriage (since that is what sex spiritually means even when no legal marriage occurs) is encumbering. In other words, the marriage (they may call it a relationship) is clipping their wings.

 

They therefore sacrifice it for success, whatever excuse they use.

 

Then they discover much later in life that life has passed them by. Sadly enough, we are never able to easily admit that we goofed since someone else must be to blame. Remember the case in Eden? They in ignorance sacrificed the wrong thing.

 

Incidentally, because they sacrificed something of great value, they ended up becoming extremely successful in what they sacrificed for.

 

Or look at this man who decided to sacrifice his family, especially children (time wise), to make a coin. They will lose what they sacrificed (since that is what a sacrifice is anyway) and get that coin in abundance. And like the woman they will realize too late that they sacrificed the wrong thing since the children were the driving force for that sacrifice. He therefore ends up living in regret when he realizes that with all that he made he has no children to take over as he had purposed. Or do you think it is an accident that many children on the streets, rehabs and asylums are from well to do families?

 

And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. (Exodus 23:8)

 

A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth. (Proverbs 17:8)

 

Think of this as another sacrifice.

 

Another observation about sacrifice is that sacrifice is progressive as no one sacrifice is enough.

 

Christ is the only One who gave one sacrifice once for all. And it was because He gave the ultimate sacrifice, Himself, and so had nothing else to give above that.

 

And we see that very clearly with the father of faith, Abraham.

 

He starts by sacrificing his security when he responded to God’s call. Then we see him sacrificing his advantage and privilege when he releases Lot. Later he sacrifices his right to the spoils when he rescued Sodom. But we later see him sacrificing the promise, Isaac.

 

The progressive nature of sacrifice is not constrained to God. It is even more dramatic with the evil one (call it the world, ambition or advantage if you fear those tough descriptions).

 

It means that small sacrifice you made to pass that exam introduced you to a life of sacrifice that grows in demand. Probably you just paid a small amount or bedded the teacher. Probably you went with your notes into the exam room, etc.

 

The sacrifices required will grow in demand until you will be required to give what you value most which is what made you compromise at the beginning.

 

That is why I pity ministers whose only defense for their calling is that they left employment or business. That was just the introduction. If the demands for your calling are not increasing, it is possible you are a toddler as far as ministry is concerned. You stop growing when no more sacrifice is being required of you. Or you probably heard the call from another lord.

 

God demands more from us when we respond to Him. But we are enabled by Christ’s sacrifice to follow those increasing demands.

 

Let nobody deceive you that Christ does not require a sacrifice from us.

 

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

 

And this

 

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God. (Romans 12: 1, 2)

 

What will your sacrifice be? To whom will you direct that sacrifice?