SORRY, BUT IT CAN’T BE a “sacrifice” you are offering to God if it didn’t cost you anything. Even if it is to a family member, a friend or a stranger, if it didn’t cost you anything, it cannot be a sacrifice.
Anything you sacrifice must come with a cost and a price and it more likely than not will cause physical and emotional pain and loss. This should put Romans 12:1 into perspective: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
To offer your bodies as a “living sacrifice” basically means to keep your covenant with God and to obey His commandments. To simplify it further, don’t be conformed to this world, which is a continuous challenge because we daily struggle with “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life”. To serve God with all your heart and to be one of His disciples comes at a serious cost and that’s why in Luke 14:26-33, Jesus reminds us to “count the cost”.
If you don’t want to sacrifice and accept the cost of losing friends, family, house, land, career, sleep, business, fame, popularity, dreams, aspirations and so on, then sorry, Christianity isn’t for you. I won’t lie to you or pretty it up: there is a cost for living for, following and representing Christ. The sacrifice is great, the cost is enormous, the work is hard, the tears are many but the retirement plan is priceless.
It was only after I decided that I would commit to offering my life as a living sacrifice back in 2000 that I realised the cost I would have to bear. Within the first three months I lost my closest friend and that hurt for many years, but I remained committed, only to be rewarded 12 years later with the restoration of that friendship.
I lived to see that the cost I paid changed ridicule to respect from those same friends. It blessed my heart to see my peers years later approaching me for guidance, advice, a shoulder to lean on and for prayer.
When I emptied my bank account and travelled to Haiti to spend Christmas with less fortunate children there, I received heavy criticism as well. When I felt God leading me to spend between 2000 and 2007 volunteering my vacation and free time at Youth With A Mission and other community and religious organisations, I was again criticised and received very little support.
I sacrificed working and making money, being able to buy things for myself and going out with my friends, but little did I know that seven years later, that cost led to me becoming the Commonwealth Youth Ambassador.
Being a living sacrifice comes at a great cost and this is why it is very important for believers to spend time with God and get familiar with His voice and His ways. There is a thin line between walking in obedience based on the direction of God and walking in stupidity and making unwise decisions. It is critical to know God’s voice.
In 2 Samuel 24:24, David refused Araunah’s free offering of his oxen for him to sacrifice as an offering to God. David responded: “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”
If what you offer to God doesn’t cost you anything, then it can’t be a sacrifice. Count the cost, because being a Christian means you will gain but definitely lose some stuff.
• Corey Worrell, a former Commonwealth youth ambassador, is director of C2J Foundation Inc., a project-based NGO focusing on social development. Email coreyworrell@gmail.com