Sacrifice and Worship

Something that has been a topic of discussion lately is sacrifice. One Bible story that received a lot of attention was the story of Abraham and Isaac, when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a teat of his faith and stopped him at the last minute.

I was reading over that story and something really cool popped out at me. It comes to the part of the story where Abraham and Isaac are about to part ways with the rest of their group, here is what the scripture says,” He said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.’”

He said that they were going to worship. Now, it’s not like Abraham was lying to his servants, or trying to trick them into thinking that they weren’t going to sacrifice, that was obviously their intent. Rather this statement makes clear to us that worship is sacrifice. Worship is more than just music and lyrics, but it is about how you live your life.

Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” Living sacrifices, a life dedicated to the worship God is characterized by sacrifice. This is something important for everyone to know because what you sacrifice for is a good indicator of who or what you worship.

Romans 1:25 says, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” So I leave you with this: What do you sacrifice for? What is it that motivates the majority of the sacrifices you make? Are you worshiping the creation rather than the creator? Who do you worship?