The problem with living sacrifices...

The Christian life is marked by humble service and reverent submission to Christ, out of gratitude for what he achieved at the cross, namely, our salvation. With this in mind, Paul exhorts the believers in Rome to present their bodies as LIVING SACRIFICES to God (Romans 12:1); “living”, because it is Christ who died in their place and “sacrifices” because the motivation for such a life is praise and thanksgiving.

We all are “living sacrifices” wholly devoted to God, renewed each day by his Spirit and living for his Glory no matter what the cost… at least … that’s what we ought to be…

Thinking about what it means to be a “living sacrifice” makes me feel like the “chief of sinners”, I know I don’t live up to the definition it wrote just thirty seconds ago so what is the problem with “living sacrifices”?

Answer – we keep crawling off the altar.

We long we be people who are devoted to gospel living, and look up to men like Paul who declare “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (while he stands atop a skyscraper with his cape blowing in the wind) but the sad reality is that there are two things that cause us to crawl off the altar of living sacrifice:

1) We stop being a “living sacrifice” when we crawl off the altar of praise and thanksgiving in order to wallow in the old sins of our old life.
As human beings we love sin, can’t get enough of it and wouldn’t do it if we didn’t enjoy it; lust, pride, greed, envy, fear of man (in no particular order). As Christians we still struggle with the presence of sin (Romans 7) and this can leave us feeling frustrated and discouraged but, remember, Paul has brought us to Romans 12 via Romans 1-11! And in Romans 6 he declares that we DIED with Christ and as a result we live as though we are dead to sin and alive to God; not least because that is exactly what we are.
Moreover, Jesus has brought our JUSTIFICATION (our being right before God) “by his blood” (Romans 5), this means that the sin that entices us away from a life of living sacrifice can be overcome because Christ’s death secured the victory over sin and its effects. Therefore, we must rejoice and be motivated by our new life in Christ, he has brought us from death to life and as a result we live a transformed life by the power of his Holy Spirit.
Too often we look longingly at our old lives and desire sin like it were a meaningless moment of adult naughtiness and not as it really is, the relationship destroying, decay and degradation for which Christ had to die.

2) We stop being a “living sacrifice” when we crawl off the altar of praise and thanksgiving in order to contribute something to our own salvation.
Christianity looks like to easiest religion in the world, it not about what we do its all about grace and what Jesus has done for us. The reality is, however, that as humans we feel a innate sense of indebtedness, that we ought to repay someone’s kindness. Often this comes from a place of pride, we work or pay back or reciprocate so that we don’t feel beholden to anyone. How dangerous this is for our salvation!
The greatest gift anyone has ever given is God’s own giving of himself in his son Jesus to be our saviour; for this reason Paul can say that “we are saved by grace through faith, not of ourselves but a gift of God, not a result of works so no one can boast” (Ephesians 2: 8-9)
The problem with such immense generosity is we want to pay God back so that we can say, “I did something to earn that I don’t have to feel so bad about accepting it”. What subtle pride!
If our motivation ever strays from, gratitude and praise into working for acceptance we have emptied the cross of its power and rejected the sufficiency of Jesus sacrifice.
As living sacrifices we must lay down our pride and come to Christ with open hands and declare with the blind man “Son of David, have mercy on me a sinner”

...thoroughly equipped...

2 Tim 3:16+17 says 'All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God is thoroughly equipped for every good work.'

Unfortunately it seems that the church today, especially the Church of Ireland rewritten it to say that, 'All scripture is nice and makes us seem holy and is useful for training in religion so that the minister comes across a nice guy and holier than thou.'

I only wish this were an exaggeration! How else would we know about God unless he reveals himself to us, which he has in the bible, and yet we pass off the bible as if it's just another tool among other viable options such as culture and emotion?

It's time that we realised the truth of God's word. Realised the authority it has and the divine origin it comes with as it is 'God-breathed'.

It's time we actually taught the Bible with passion and vigour and gave it the treatment it desserves; not as an ammo dump for anecdotal tid bits but as the divinely inspired, expired word of the living God.

It's time we used the bible to rebuke those who need rebuking as Titus 1:9 so rightfully backs up-no one is exempt from this, to correct and to train men of God with the powerful testimony of Jesus Christ shown throughout Scripture.

It's time we seen that the bible is central, it is the final authority, it is powerful and it is the key to making all Christians everywhere... thoroughly equipped!! Thoroughly equipped for every good work, not just some good works like social justice, or giving us good advice but EVERY good work.

Are we prepared to realise that ''All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God is thoroughly equipped for every good work.'

Let's pray that we will not fall short and that everyday we will strive to be... thoroughly equipped!!

A Health Warning

Health warnings can be a helpful way of pointing out dangers in life. We all know that smoking is bad for our health, not least, because of the millions of pounds spent on ad campaigns and clear labelling; hazardous beaches carry warnings to prevent people getting caught up in a strong undercurrent; even foods now carry colour coded labels so that we know what is okay and what will educe a coronary!

However health warnings aren’t always used for good reasons…

The recent General Synod of the Church of Ireland passed a bill to put a ‘health warning’ before the 39 Articles, (the historic doctrinal statements of Anglicanism). This took the form of a preface which outlined the Church of Ireland's commitment not to offend anyone and to champion the Arch Bishop of Armagh's crusade of inclusivism (incidentally not leaving much room for a conservative evangelical position... but no surprises there)

"negative statements towards other Christians should not be seen as representing the spirit of this Church today." (http://ireland.anglican.org/cmsfiles/pdf/Synod/2009/bills/bill1.pdf)

Compare Titus 1:9
"He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it."
Here we see Paul encouraging the use of "negative statements" as he outlines that an overseer must be able to teach (give instruction) AND refute error (rebuke those who contradict it).

But where do you draw the line?
The problem with adding this preface is that we say “if you are offended by what you read here, don’t worry we don’t really believe that any more because it wouldn’t be ‘loving’”

Are we as a denomination in danger of becoming a caricature like Father Ted; “sometimes the Pope says things he doesn’t really mean”?

Health warnings can be good but they are designed to preserve life NOT a persons sensibilities!
The sad fact of the matter is that the liberal theology that has so infected the Cof I should carry a health warning to every congregation in the land;
“Listening to this lay person, Rector, Bishop or Archbishop can SERIOUSLY damage ones eternal health”