Focus: A Living Sacrifice

Text: Gen.8:20,21

"And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of EVERY CLEAN BEAST, and of EVERY CLEAN FOWL, and OFFERED burnt offerings on the altar."

When Noah was done building the ark, God instructed him to take with him into the ark some clean and unclean animals and fowls (Gen.7:1-3). While all other things in the world perished in the flood, God saved Noah and his family, including those clean and unclean animals and fowls. By means of the ark God saved them. You can call it, the ark of safety or a saving vessel.

The ark existed before the flood came. God waited until Noah was done building the ark before He let loose the flood. The Ark served as a means of escape for Noah, his family, and the animals. The destruction of Noah's world was a divine judgment, but before the destruction God provided for his salvation. Before there was any destruction God thought of our salvation and made provision for it. Paul tells us that God makes for us "a way to escape" trouble in this life (1Cor.10:13). The word "escape" is 'ekbasis' in the Greek, and it's a nautical term, meaning that God knows how to pilot our affairs and navigate our way to safety. God has the capability and expertise to bring us through to safety on the other end. There is a safe-landing for us in Christ. Christ is our Ark of salvation. In Christ we have nothing whatsoever to worry about. In Him we live, move and have our being. Noah and the animals landed safely on the other side.

Now here is the point that hit me so hard. As soon as Noah arrives in his new world, he builds an altar, and upon it he sacrifices some of the clean animals and fowls. Imagine being saved to be sacrificed! They are moved from the Ark of safety to the Altar of sacrifice. Noah offers them to God as a burnt offering. The saved animals and fowls are burnt to ashes - just like that. That was their sole destiny - saved to serve God's purpose. 

It is far better to be sacrificed to God than to be destroyed for nothing.

We read in the next verse that "the LORD SMELLED A SWEET SAVOUR; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake…neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done." No more curse. No more destruction by flood. Thanks to the sweet-smelling sacrifice of those clean birds and animals!

Like those sacrificed birds and animals, we are saved by God to serve as living sacrifices for His glory. Those animals were burnt to death, but as for us, we are living sacrifices to God. Paul says, "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" (Rom.12:1). The word 'acceptable' means that which is well-pleasing, good, sweet, lovely, and agreeable to God. 'Living sacrifice' means that the life of a saved soul must be a life of daily sacrifice to God. It must not only be a clean life, but it must also be a life that is totally consecrated to God. It is a life in which God is the first priority. It is a life in which God's word, God's will, God's ways, and God's work are all that really matters. It is a life in which we no longer own ourselves. We belong absolutely to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul says, "…ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's," and again, he says, "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1Cor.6:19,20; 7:23). He tells the Galatian believers, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Gal.2:20).

It is a life in which the cross of Christ daily applies. Every day we die to 'self' and live to please Christ. We are 'living sacrifices' unto God unlike the animals that Noah sacrificed. Our clean, selfless, and Christ-centered living is daily glorifying and sweet-smelling to God.

Let's make the altar central to our daily life. Let the cross of Christ return to the center of our faith-life. Let's keep presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to our God. Amen.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter