Thank you for stopping by to read today's blog post. We are on the Letter S this week of Blogging Through the Alphabet. As I thought through Letter S words, I struggled to find the one that spoke to me. I wanted a word that would encourage all of us. The word I kept returning to was Sacrifice.
A Sacrifice is a gift freely given. It is surrendering something precious for the sake of someone else. Soldiers come to mind when I think of Sacrifice as they are willing to lay their lives down for the sake of freedom.
We, as Christians, are called to make Sacrifices for God. Those of us who live in the United States are blessed. We are free to worship freely. However, Christians in other countries are not as fortunate. Every time they profess their faith, they risk losing their lives. To them, their faith is worth the Sacrifice.
God made the ultimate Sacrifice when He sent His one and only Son to the cross to die for our sins. According to Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology Jesus represents four different types of Sacrifices or offerings. Jesus was the Passover Sacrifice, Peace Offering, Guilt Offering, and Sin Offering. In John 29:1 John the Baptist declares, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Scholars believe this refers to Jesus as the Passover Sacrifice as well as a suffering servant or guilt offering as is foreshadowed in Isaiah 53:7b, "He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, and so he did not open his mouth." Furthermore, Romans 8:3 says that God sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering." Finally, Romans 3:24b-25a states that we are justified by God "through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a Sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood."
We Are an Offering by Chris Christian
Til the Day I Die by TobyMac
Please take a moment to stop by my friends A Net in Time and Hopkins Homeschool, who host Blogging Through the Alphabet. You may also want to stop by some of the other blogs linked up to see what Letter S words they have explored.
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