Sacrifice

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. (Romans 12:1)

O.K. Here is another trigger word that emerged to my attention. Sacrifice. I now realize that the connotations of this word in my mind, the assumptions that this word conjures up in my thinking and emotions are likely suspect at best and are probably misleading and keeping me from seeing clearly the real meaning of this verse.

As usual I feel the need to start out by flushing out the misconceptions associated with this word so I can unpack them and see some of the fallacy in them in order to make room for fresh insights and replacement truths to take their place.

Sacrifice has typically been associated in my mind with similar feelings as suffering. From a very early age I picked up from the religious people around me the idea that Christians must be suffering people or they are likely not good Christians. This word sacrifice is closely associated with that concept and was probably one of the ways in which we imposed suffering on ourselves as well as on our families.

I can also remember many discussions or teachings about sacrifice and the carefulness with which the teachers deeply embedded their beliefs about sacrifice. It always conveyed the idea of forcing yourself to give up something you liked or needed or cherished. The more important or valuable it was to you the more likely it might be a target of God's demand that you relinquish it for His sake.

Somehow it was implied that if we would be willing to sacrifice whatever was demanded of us that God might then bless us more or at least think better about us. It had the subtle flavor of trying to manipulate God to do something for us although that notion was vehemently denied and opposed in the open teaching sessions. But this was the common and accepted view of all ancient religions and still carries on predominantly today.

In reviewing the long history of sacrifices throughout the Old Testament it became apparently clear that God expected a great deal of blood, death and suffering to keep Him satisfied. Of course it was never put in those words but the effect of the stories had that net effect. Many religious stories, not only from the Bible but from many other sources stressed the centrality of the need for sacrifices as part of living the Christian life. It was emphasized repeatedly that without sacrifice – and the more the better – it was impossible to be a real Christian or to please God.

Implicit in the discussions about sacrifice was the need to give money to the church. To give to the church is synonymous with giving to God without question in most minds. Of course it could only be truly effective and valid as long as it was given to the right church, the denomination that had all the truth. Gifts given to other causes were somehow maybe a little less valuable. Or maybe that was just my own personal feelings that accumulated as I grew up.

Another aspect of sacrifices was the issues of giving up bad habits for God. One could not become a legitimate Christian unless they were baptized into the right church and kept the right set of rules and doctrines. But to join that church there was also a list of prerequisites that had to be met before a person could join (which was also synonymous with being saved). Sacrifices were necessary to become a part of the family of God and so each unacceptable bad habit had to be checked off before a person could be allowed into the baptismal tank and be approved and affirmed as a Christian in good standing. This is still pretty much the same situation today as when I was growing up.

In this context, the idea of sacrifice was similar to that of giving up money or time or being willing to be used or controlled by religious people who claimed to be wiser and more able to discern God's will. For new members sacrifice meant quitting smoking, abstinence from drinking alcohol and not living in immorality. There were many others things more detailed that might be imposed depending on the attitudes of local Christian activists. Some would even include refraining from eating any cheese or eggs, using any cooking oil and even removing salt from the diet. But these were extremes not usually encountered in most places.

I want to make it clear here that I am not condemning or condoning any of these beliefs or practices by listing them here. I am simply reviewing through my memories to see what comes up as associated with this word “sacrifice”. Some of these things I do not agree with and others I believe are important but maybe for very different reasons than how they were taught to me. But many of them are quite reflective of the distorted ideas about God that I have spent a number of years divesting myself of and that God has been working to remove. Many of these ideas perpetuate what is really a false god that many believe to be the God described in the Bible since that is where these ideas are justified from.

I do not want to imply that people who did these things were somehow evil or diabolical or bigoted, though some of them may very well have been. For me to judge them would be to give nourishment to the roots of bitterness that I want to be completely free from and so I don't want to go down that road anymore. But I do need to unmask some of the false notions and triggers associated with many religious words that still haunt me so that I can be free to see their true meaning in light of the real truths about God that I have been learning recently.

The purpose of sacrifices were always a little nebulous to me. Maybe they were supposed to keep one poor. Being poor somehow seemed to imply that one might be more likely to be holy that those who were rich. Of course poor and rich are relative terms and few people consider themselves rich though many who have less might think differently. As I mentioned above, another implied purpose – but not openly espoused – for sacrifices was to please God and cause Him to like us better or whatever we were trying to get Him to be. I guess to sum it up, sacrifices were mainly the function of depleting ourselves for the purpose of enriching the church and somehow spreading what was termed “the gospel” along with changing God's attitude toward us. (That word “gospel” is a whole other discussion of itself)

I would suppose after thinking about all of these things that the thing most often associated with the idea of sacrifice was money. It seemed to be the item most favored in expositions about sacrifice, though time and energy were not far behind. Many stories about sacrificing people like missionaries and other heroes of faith were constantly circulated as examples of what we should do with our lives and where we should invest our money. Again, I am not trying to denigrate the importance or legitimacy of the lives of many of these people. But what was sadly overlooked too many times was the hidden pain and tragic consequences – the collateral damage you might say – that was caused sometimes in the lives of children or wives that suffered neglect or even abuse under the cover of working hard to save the lost and achieve great accomplishments for God.

After reviewing this list of things that are linked to this word “sacrifice”, it is no wonder that I struggle to understand what Paul really was intending to convey when he made this statement to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. If sacrifice means all of the things listed above, then it is very confusing what it might mean to offer our own physical bodies as such an offering to God. Unless of course, it is referring to martyrs who were willing to allow their bodies to be tortured and destroyed for the sake of their belief in God. But not too many of us are in that position or are even interested in having that opportunity.

So what does sacrifice really mean? I looked up the word in the Greek and it did not provide much help on this one. I suspect that the true meaning of sacrifice as heaven views it is going to have to come from larger resources than simply looking up human definitions for the word. For the definitions recorded in dictionaries only reflect the common beliefs that the majority of people have about a word but often may not reflect what God originally meant for the word to convey. In addition, God has had to “dumb down” all of His communications with humans to meet us where we are in our dullness and confused ideas about reality and often has to use terminology that is not as accurate as He would prefer. Then to add to that problem, religious people take the words that God used in the past and transforms them into even worse misconceptions about His intents based on centuries of false views of God.

I do not want to use this as an excuse for skepticism or to inflame feelings of resentment about past abuses and false religious ideas that have caused untold grief and pain in the lives of many. That would not serve the purpose that I want for my life now – to explore and discover the real truths about God and to reveal His wonderful goodness and beautiful truth. I only want to get everything out on the table, especially the false notions that are hiding in my own heart that often remain overlooked by my consciousness but continue to strongly affect my interpretations of life and influence my perceptions of God. It is precisely because these haunting feelings are so out of harmony with the glory that is now being revealed that I want to bring them to the light and expose and revise them as necessary.

"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:19-21)

Father, I bring all these things to be examined by Your light. Please show me the real truth about this word that is used so much in religion. Show me what You really want and have always wanted. Show me the real truth about You so that I can see Your beauty and attractiveness more clearly and better reflect that to others in my own life.

(next in series)

Hyper-active Thinking

I am returning to my previously suspended study through the book of Romans to pick up where I left off a couple months ago. I have spent about two months unpacking Hebrews 12 in my quest to expose the roots of bitterness in myself and I have learned a great deal both in mind and heart. That will continue to be an ongoing dialog between my heart and God but I feel that I have mined that passage long enough to satisfy my need to clarify much of it and I want to return to finish my journey through the rest of Romans.

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3)

For I say, through the grace that was given to me, to every one who is among you, not to think above what it behoveth to think; but to think so as to think wisely, as to each God did deal a measure of faith. (Romans 12:3 YLT)

When I looked up the words for this text in the Greek I noticed that the reference to himself is not in the original as reflected in the second translation given here. What it seems to indicate more in the original is that a person is not to have a hyper-active mind, to think excessively more than he should use his mind in contrast to having sound judgment. The Greek word used for think more highly here literally means to hyper-think.

I believe this insight could be very helpful because it has broader application than just someone feeling too proud about themselves or being arrogant. It could also apply to those who allow their problem-solving, solution-seeking obsessions get out of control and become unbalanced in their thinking. This can happen in either direction with an imbalance between the left-brain logical, intellectual formula part of the mind taking over and ignoring or suppressing the other side, or the right-brain, emotionally driven, pleasure seeking obsessiveness that ignores the words and guidelines of the Bible in favor of preference for whatever makes me feel good.

Looking again at this verse I see other clues that may lend themselves to this proposition. In some respects the reference to sound judgment could refer to the careful, deliberate, logical reasoning that is led by a well-trained left brain and the reference to a measure of faith could refer more to the deeper experiential areas found primarily in the right brain where I believe more activity of the spirit takes place. If this is the case, and it certainly is plausible I believe, then this passage is promoting our need to have a respect for the need of balance and cooperation between these two very different areas of our brain.

through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you...

I find this preface to be a bit curious. Why does Paul feel the need to point out that it is from this basis that he is making the following statement about having balance? Why does Paul feel the need of talking about the grace for himself in this context?

I don't think I have very good explanations for this off the top of my head. (Most satisfying explanations never come from there anyway) The only thing that comes to mind right now is that Paul's own experience of coming into balance himself from being a person heavy on the intellectual and out of touch with his own heart for many years was due to the grace he had experienced from the personal visit from Jesus on the Damascus road. But that grace did not just happen in that one event but was the active force in his life as he retrained the whole way he viewed life over the next few years and then became the highly effective missionary that his later life demonstrated. The reason he was so effective was because he was able to be used by God as one who knew how to reach out to the hearts of his hearers as well as how to dialog with them at the intellectual level.

Paul was all too familiar with the reality of the problem of thinking hyper-actively without being guided by a heart warmed with the love of God. He was one who could be the first to say, “Been there- done that – bought the T-shirt!” Because of his own experience and the many people that he struggled to reach with God's grace who also resisted it because of their intellectual interference, he realized the importance of keeping a mind in proper balance as it was designed by God to function.

In addition to having balance he also notes that this balance is to be measured by the amount of faith within a person's life. This faith that he talks about is not how self-convinced a person can make themselves that God might do something for them, which is often our concept of faith. But true faith is a child-like trust in a person whom they have known by personal experience to be worthy of trust. Real faith is spontaneous in nature and is not something we have to work hard at producing. Faith is more a result than it is a choice though its exercise often involves a choice to remember the worthiness of the One we need to trust.

So the measure of faith is really a measure of the amount of experience and interaction with God along with the amount of real truth about Him that makes up our knowledge of God. According to the degree that we believe the truth about God's goodness and grace will be the capacity that we will have for faith in Him. And to the measure of that capacity we need to be careful to keep both sides of our brain engaged in a balanced way so that we will be wise and sound of mind.

(next in series)

Just a Note about this Series

This is a temporary posting to let anyone know who might be interested in this current series that I have just posted the first 7 that started this series but were, until now unpublished. I decided to go ahead and post all of them though at the time I wrote them the material was too sensitive to me personally to release them at that time. I also linked all of the posts together in this series on Bitter Roots up to the current date so that they can be read from the beginning in sequence. The place to drop into the first post of the series is on the link called Bible Exploration Series in the sidebar.

Remove or Remain

This expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe. (Hebrews 12:27-28)

The English translation of verse 27 leaves me scratching my head just a little bit. If it were to be taken extremely literally as it reads here it might imply that everything that God has created everywhere would be eliminated and only God would be left since He is not created. I don't think anyone holds that view so I went looking for the original words and compared other translations to see what insights might help me understand this better.

What emerges is best conveyed, at least from all the translations I have on my computer, by Young's Literal Translation that reads:

and this--`Yet once' --doth make evident the removal of the things shaken, as of things having been made, that the things not shaken may remain; wherefore, a kingdom that cannot be shaken receiving, may we have grace, through which we may serve God well-pleasingly, with reverence and religious fear. (Hebrews 12:27-28)

What I am beginning to see is that likely this is talking about things made or created artificially and under the influence of the enemy of God who has worked so long to develop and establish a viable counterfeit to God's system of creation and government. Because the counterfeit is so very unstable and vulnerable to collapse if exposed to the truth about reality, God's voice of truth is enough to cause the collapse of that deceptive system, expose it for what it is and cause a shaking that will result in its total demise.

The previous time that God spoke fundamental truths in this way it was very restricted and limited to a local situation at Mount Sinai and a relatively small group of people. It still had immense impact on the history of the world but it did not have the devastating, annihilating effect on Satan's kingdom that the final display of God's glory and truth are going to have. This great war is essentially the comparing of two very different models of rulership and only one is going to survive. Satan's kingdom rules beings with fear, force and fakeness. God's kingdom is based on faith, hope and love. The pitched battle that we find ourselves all caught up in is for the decision of our hearts as to which influence we are going to allow to be the dominate belief of our hearts.

We are born under the model and influence of the control and deceptions of sin. But God has provided a way of escape and gives every single individual chances and opportunities and motivations to believe in His goodness and His provisions for them to accept and believe the redemption that Jesus has secured for everyone. Evil forces are constantly working to infect our hearts with lies about God and His plans and desires to save us from this mess. The direction of our life is determined by the trend of the choices that we make in reference to what we are going to believe about God. That is the core issue of the whole controversy and is the main choice that we are faced with every day – what do we choose to really believe about God and His attitude toward us. Each decision about this question in turn strongly influences every other choice in life that we make whether we realize it or not. It affects every area of our existence and is the guiding factor for the way we not only relate to Him but to everyone else and ourself as well.

Every lie that Satan promotes about God is fabricated through the mixture of truth and subtle deception. If it does not have enough truth to make it appealing or compelling then it becomes ineffective. If it does not contain at least a tiny seed of deception it does not serve the kingdom of darkness. But the discernment needed to unmask these proliferous beliefs designed to distort the image of God in us can only come with the presence of the Holy Spirit of God sent to guide us into all truth. And the truth that He has been sent to guide us into is an intimate relationship with the One who declared that He was the essence of truth. It is not intellectual truth or factual truth that is so vital to helping us escape from the massive system of deception assembled by the enemy, it is primarily heart truth that will make the real difference in whether we will choose life or stay in the shadows of death that hold so much allure for pride, for pleasure and self-satisfaction.

These verses make it very plain that the future holds a very definite shift in reality as we know it. Everything that has been artificially assembled and created by man and by demonic inspiration will soon collapse in the revelation of real reality – and that is pretty much everything that we are familiar with. If we choose to align ourselves with the truth about reality as revealed by the Creator of all true reality, then we receive the true Kingdom which cannot be shaken because it is reality itself. Our natural response to becoming aware of our safety and security within this real kingdom is gratitude springing from a heart freed from the deceptions of the false kingdom that we have lived under all of our lives. It will be spontaneous gratitude directed primarily toward God who has done everything possible to attract us to Himself who only can rescue us from evil of all kinds.

The more clearly we understand and appreciate the awesome truths about reality and the glorious nature of God's feelings toward every one of us, the more awe and reverence and joy we will feel about the privileges we have been entrusted with in this new kingdom. There are also extremely important warnings that we need to be aware of – warnings about the terrible consequences of being synchronized in any way with the false ideas and methods of the enemy. Our hearts and minds must go through a process of cleansing and renewing so that we can be completely and fully transformed into the image of God for which we were originally created. Any resistance to God and His Spirit's convictions in our hearts that is not released during our time of preparation will be a lethal incendiary buried within our souls that will ignite into fatal fire within us when exposed to the pure and holy presence of our awesome God.

Again, it is never God's desire in any way for us to suffer the pain and loss that comes from our resistance to the reality of Creation. But it is important that we are warned of the consequences of any choice that fails to receive the grace provided for us and be freed from everything that will be shaken and removed in the final day of revelation. It will be far too late at that time to make any more choices about the content of our characters. When the testing and shaking time comes for the whole earth it will simply be a time of revealing what is really on the inside of every person and the results of the choices they have chosen to exercise in the past. Everyone will be exposed fully in the judgment, not primarily about what they have done externally, although that is a strong indicator of what was developed inside of them, but the revealing of the spirit which they cultivated within their heart toward God and toward others. It is the spirit of man that determines his character and personality over time and it is our spirit that God is most keen to transform by the presence of His own Spirit.