Inspired by . . . Day 24: JOY of sacrifice

Inspired by . . . Day 23: Balancing J... Inspired by . . . Day 25: a JOY overf...

Inspired by . . . Day 24: JOY of sacrifice

This post is part of a 31 day series on JOY

You may access all the past days by clicking here.

Then said Jesus unto His disciples, If any man will come after Me,

let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it:

and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. Matthew 16:24-25

This business of Christianity really is all JOY, my friends. It is really quite simple. It is we who muck it up with our misconceptions about God.

Maybe next October I’ll do 31 Days of Correcting Our Misconceptions about God. Actually, my friend TC could ace a series like that, she’s a much better scholar than I. I’ll have to mention it to her {smile}.

For today, I want to add a little JOY back into how we think about sacrifice. Because true sacrifice is not about us giving something up that we don’t want to give up, and therefore being miserable because of it.

Sacrifice is about giving our best to God.

Sharing it with Him, really. Because when we give sacrificially to God, He returns the blessing to us.

In the Bible the meaning of sacrifice is the

deliberate giving of the best I have to God

that He may make it His and mine for ever:

if I cling to it I lose it, and so does God.

The story of the pearls comes to mind, and I wonder what I may be holding back from God that He wants to replace with the real deal.

But really, I think what a lot of us struggle with most, is giving God . . .

Ourselves.

Above all, it is a relationship with us that He truly wants.

So then, my friends, because of God's great mercy to us I appeal to you:

Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God,

dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him.

This is the true worship that you should offer. Romans 12:1

Something else to consider about sacrifice:

God’s aim is that we have to take part in our own moral development,

and we do this through the sacrifice of the natural to the spiritual by obedience,

not denying the natural, but sacrificing it.

When we think about the natural in the proper context, that our natural, human will will always choose against the things of God {it will always choose self}, then it should bring us great JOY to sacrifice it to the spiritual. I’m so glad Chambers used the term “development.” Because this denying of self, and choosing God is a process. A daily laying down, and picking up.

But it is a JOYful JOurneY, my friend.

Don’t let misconceptions steal the JOY God has for you.

Read the Word. Ask God for wisdom.

He promises to give it. James 1:5

Blessings,