The Rejection of Sacrifice

Obedience to God very often appears to us, at first glance, to mean sacrifice. We shrink from it. Sacrifice always involves death, and we reject death. But the divine paradox, the one we find running throughout all of Scripture, is that this sacrifice ---the offering of ourselves in obedience to God--- always means life. It is life, nothing less than life, that God offers us, so when we disobey, what we are actually doing is choosing death.

“The Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes and to fear the Lord our God; it will be for our own good at all times, and he will continue to preserve our lives” (Deut 6:24).

We balk at something our conscience tells us we must do--- “I don’t see how that could be for my ‘good’” ---but God does not discuss with us the how or the why. He simply makes clear what it is we must do. Then we must take His word for it that it will mean life to us. Every day He sets two things before us –life and death. Every day we choose sacrifice, which leads to life, or selfishness, the rejection of sacrifice, which leads to death. We can count on it, for we have the Word of the Lord that it is so.

The Music of His Promises by Elisabeth Elliot