Skip to main content

Living sacrifice

Romans 12:1-2 is a familiar passage, one that I've memorized and recited in prayers on numerous occasions, but for some reason I had a hard time seeing how the two verses relate to one another (not just as separate entities). Yesterday I re-read the chapter in multiple translations, soughout desiringgod.org for Piper's insights, but still didn't come to a conclusion. I went snowboarding briefly in the afternoon and asked my friend on the lift chair for her thoughts. We didn't really come to a conclusion on the spot, but she apparently meditated on it last night, and sent me this email:


"In the OT, whenever sacrifices were made, they were burnt on the altar. They were literally burnt in fire. But you know what we do? we burn energy. As we move around, play sports, study, work, or even just by existing, we consume energy. By saying consuming energy, scientifically, it means that our body literally burns glucose (simple sugar) in mitochondria in our cells. No kidding. Burning in chemistry means carbon compound (sugar included) + oxygen, and that's what our body does when we consume energy. Even when we are not doing anything, like when ever sleeping, we still are burning energy.

By living in this world, just by existing here, I think we are being living sacrifices to this world. By conforming to this world, our lives are being burnt as sacrifice for the glory of this world, not of God. But the problem is, we live in this world, and it is IMPOSSIBLE for us not to conform to this world because it is inevitable that we burn our energy on this world. In the end this place is where we live.

Thus, we can't live our lives as living sacrifices presented to God with our own will only. It has to be done with God's help. So "let God transform you into a new person (verse 2 from NLT)." God has to transform us so our lives can be devoted to Him, because it is just inevitable for us to live according to the pattern of this world, burning our energy on worldly things, making ourselves willingly/unwillingly sacrifices given to this world. Once God makes us new, we learn to know how to live our lives on this earth, to glorify His name. Hence, once we are renewed by God, then we can finally be burnt as sacrifices to God, not to this world."

When I was reading her reflections this morning I couldn't help but walk with a HUGE grin on my face--my friend is a huge science nerd and God speaks to her and gives her revelations using scientific metaphors. I would have NEVER thought to explain being living sacrifices using glucose and mitochondria (that's the red loopy thing right?), but I was simply in awe as the Word of God came alive through this metaphor.


TYL for creating us SO uniquely and differently, where not a single person is a clone of another (which would honestly be a bore)--for giving us unique gifts, interests, and passions to faithfully administer your grace in its various forms. May You continue to renew our minds and change the way we think, so we may burn as living sacrifices for the name of Jesus.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And just when you least expect it..

Today I went down to the food court with another intern and as I opened my box of sushi, I hesitated. Feeling as if there were too many eyes on me (I only ate with one other person -_-), I questioned whether I should pray before my meal, in fear of social rejection. After I prayed, she asked me if I was a Christian, and I awkwardly responded that I was. Then she said, "Finally! What a relief to know that there are other Christians!" WHAT THE.. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, sitting with a co-worker that I had simply exchanged cordial greetings with, now talking about God haha. Even though I was scared and honestly did NOT want to pray, God used a habitual thing like that to open up opportunities for me to invite her to small group and share my faith. Crazy how He works when you least expect it.
5 comments
Read more

Delirious

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur...
5 comments
Read more

Surrendering my career

"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." The concept of surrendering my career never made much sense to me because I've always known what I wanted to do, and was perfectly en route to achieving it. I thought I was better than everyone else for knowing what I wanted to do. In all frankness, I just thought I was awesome and gave myself credit for every accomplishment in my life. When God directly confronted me last year with how much I had been living for myself, I made all excuses to rationalize and justify myself. Somehow God changed my heart to be willing to let go of my perfect plan and insured that I would never find the type of security and identity that I found through a job title or company reputation. He took me through a whole year of rejections and dejected moments so that I would learn what it means to be satisfied with merely having a relationship with the God of the universe , not just praising Him or want...
2 comments
Read more