A Living Sacrifice

A Living Sacrifice

I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Romans 12:1

JOHANNA VEENSTRA LEFT the “bright lights and gay life” of New York City in 1919 to serve at a mission station in Nigeria, where she encountered swarms of white ants and bothersome rats and bicycled across rough terrain from village to village. But this service was an answer to her prayers of faith, and she successfully preached, did medical work, and started schools for training evangelists. Today, a seminary in Nigeria is named in her honor. She gave herself for a God and a people she loved.^a

Veenstra’s friends back home and her biographer marveled at this life of sacrifice, as friends and biographers tend to do. But for a person who trusts God to fulfill his calling and watch over those he loves, such sacrifices hardly seem sacrificial at all. Paul urged Roman believers to offer themselves to God as a living sacrifice and a continuing act of worship. The life of faith will not say no to that offering, especially in light of the offering God has given us in the sacrifice of his Son. When we come to him in faith, it is not because we want to do him a favor. It’s because he is our source of life, our faithful friend, our gentle and powerful Lord, and the lover of our souls. What kind of sacrifice is that? It’s actually a pleasure to give.

It’s essential to make the offering of our lives to him the context for our prayers of faith. We do not come to God to attempt to make him our servant. We come as his servants, as well as his children, followers, friends, and beloved companions who have given our hearts to him. Our prayers themselves become sacrifices of worship; we join our desires with his to further his purposes in our lives and world. They are a pleasing aroma (2 Corinthians 2:15; Revelation 5:8) and represent a longing to fit ourselves into his plans. And he works his gifts and blessings into the lives we have offered.

There has been no sacrifice, because the Lord Jesus himself is my constant companion.