Christian Living

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At virtually every gathering of Christians, there is a time set aside for collection of offerings. Can you imagine someone giving an offering today and coming back tomorrow to say, “If you don’t mind, I would like to collect my offering back; I want to use it for something else”. I don’t think any of us have ever done that or would ever think of doing something like that. At least when it comes to things like offerings, we seem to have a pretty good understanding of what it means to give and not look back. However, few of us are able to apply this same principle to our relationship with God. Can you truly say you have given your body, time, talents and gifts wholly to God and you aren’t looking back?

Romans 12:1 tells us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord. What is a sacrifice in this context? It can be likened to what happened between Abraham and Isaac. God told Abraham in Genesis 22:2 to sacrifice his son as a burnt offering. At that altar of sacrifice, Abraham was to let go of what was most dear to his heart. He was to deny himself the joy and privilege of being a father. He was to walk away from the thing he needed most. He was to kill and bury all his dreams about fatherhood on that altar. What a hard thing to ask, but Abraham obeyed. The result of this was that he not only got back his son, but became a father of many nations.

A lot of us claim to have given our lives to Christ but in actual fact, God doesn’t have full ownership of us. When He needs our time, we have ‘perfect’ reasons why we can’t give Him our time. When He wants to use our lips to preach and win souls, we have logical explanations why we can’t go out on evangelism. When He wants to use our talents and skills, we have wise explanations why we can’t sing, write, dance, or act or be involved in planning that program. Yet we loudly sing songs like ‘Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee’ or ‘I am Thine O Lord, I have heard thy voice”.

Every time we refuse God, it’s like giving an offering and coming back to collect your offering from the church. There was never a case in Old Testament times of people who would bring sacrifices to the priest for the forgiveness of their sins for instance and then come back to collect the sacrifice from the priest saying that they needed it for something else or wanted to give it to someone else. For us New Testament believers, Jesus is our High Priest and the sacrifice we bring to Him is our very lives. This is a sacrifice that is not to be collected back. This is a sacrifice that remains with your High Priest no matter the situation. He remains the owner of the sacrifice for life; He remains the owner of your life to do as He wills. So you can’t afford to live your life anyhow. You can’t use your body anyhow you like since you are not the real owner of your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). You can’t use your time to indulge in every activity under the sun, you are to spend your time on only those activities that the real and true owner of your time would be pleased with.

Our lives are to be consecrated unto the Lord. Nothing can take the place of consecration. Consecration is about our giving our lives fully to God and doing His will not ours. It is living for Christ not for self. It is placing God first in your life and in all you do. It is yielding yourself to God to follow and live out His plan and purpose for your life. It is enthroning God as the rightful owner of your life.

Today is a good time to ask yourself the question who really owns my life? You more than anyone else knows what the answer to that question is. May God help you today and always to be totally consecrated unto the Lord and to offer yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, so there will be no doubt whatsoever as to who owns your life.

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