Living Sacrifices

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By Sandy Mayle

Erie, Pa.

Aren’t imperfect gifts sometimes the best? I point to my refrigerator as an example.

My five-year-old granddaughter Celia sometimes brings me artwork she has done in Sunday School class. Of course, it goes onto the fridge. Right now I’m displaying a sheep she made from a flattened coffee filter, on which cotton balls surround a kraft-paper head, and googly eyes give it a deer-in-the-headlights look. The heading says, “The Lord is My Shepherd.”

Right there, a sermon. As His sheep, I sometimes wear the same deer-in-the-headlights look. And feel like my head is full of cotton balls. And definitely act like something that needs a shepherd!

The amazing thing is, The Lord is my Shepherd.

Although God required Old Testament Jews to offer as sacrifices only sheep that were perfect (and perfectly dead), today God is asking for sacrifices that are living and imperfect! Flawed, yes, but completely on the altar.

Are you living? Are you imperfect? Then you qualify!

Perhaps you’ve already asked His forgiveness for your sins and trusted Him for salvation. (If you haven’t, start there!). But God wants more from you and me than the “sinner’s prayer.” He wants us to come to realize, OK, I haven’t really given myself body, mind, and soul to the Lord. He wants more. He deserves everything. I need to quit crawling off the altar.”

The apostle Paul challenged the Roman believers: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1 NIV).

In the Greek, I’m told, this verse means to offer yourself completely to God at a specific point and from that time forward. To be an ongoing, living, imperfect sacrifice to Him. To be His sometimes-flattened, cotton-headed, googly-eyed sheep wholly and forever.

Not so He can stick you on His fridge, but so He can rest you in green pastures, lead you beside still waters, restore your soul. Lead you in paths of righteousness right through the valley of the shadow of death, anoint you with His Spirit, overflow your life with blessings, and take you into His forever-fold.

Have you offered all you are as a living sacrifice to God?

If not, don’t put it off.

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Sandy Mayle is a freelancer who has written for Focus on the Family, Prayer Connect, Just Between Us, and many other publications. She and her husband Dave have been married for 48 years and have three sons and eight grandchildren. She can be contacted at dasmayle@gmail.com.