Numbers: Human sacrifices - in a good way

When you hear the phrase "human sacrifice" it brings up images of people dressed in black robes around some cultist fire with drums beating in the background. But in Numbers 8, the priests were presented to God as human sacrifices in exactly the same way that certain portions of meat from consecrated offerings were presented.  These men were truly offered as human sacrifices.

When I read Romans telling me to present my body as a human sacrifice, I typically have visions of lying lifeless upon a big altar. Yet, this imagery is radically different. After being presented as a sacrifice, the priests did not die but lived the rest of their lives as servants to God and his people. By holding on to the wrong image, we rob the command of its strength. It is not a reference to only turning my life over to the Father but more precisely it is turning my life over to the Father in order to spend the rest of my days serving his people.

By holding the wrong image in an individualistic society, we lop off the most obvious implications for how our lives are to be transformed. We let ourselves off the hook. Its a lot easier to serve an unseen God than it is a seen person. Its a lot less stressful to think I'm pleasing an invisible Father than to know I'm at odds with a visible friend. Its a lot less work to have a devotional than to be devoted to serve an ungrateful person.

So what does it mean today to live out being totally offered to the Father in service to my sister or brother?

Romans 15:14-16; Offering

Paul worked to present people as an offering acceptable to God. In Numbers 8, the entire Levite tribe was presented to God as a wave offering. They were then allowed to perform the duties of priests in the tabernacle, working for God in his presence.

Often our fellowship has proclaimed that we hold to the concept of a "priesthood of all believers". Yet practice and proclamation don't seem to meet. What would a church look like where each person saw himself / herself as commissioned to work for God in his presence on a daily basis.

All of life would be an act of service. Everything would become holy because every action would be performed for God. Life would have purpose.

So why do so many Christians act like so many UnChristians? Why do I meet so many Christians who are still seeking a purpose? I wonder how odd the church today would look to Paul if he were transported in time to see us now? A priesthood that has forgotten its purpose.

Romans 6:1-14; Offerings

The idea of new life continues to jump off the pages at me. For years I read this thinking of the next life. Somehow I think many of us hear the message of "we die to sin so that after we physically die we will have a new life." I don't think that is at all what he is talking about. Paul is concerned with how people are living in the here and now. He is concerned with their actions today and what living for God looks like 24/7. If that is the case, then "new life" is not about some ethereal experience yet to come. It is about a new experience now.

If the "body of sin is done away with" already, then this new life must be ongoing at this moment. Either that, or we are dragging around dead bodies with us. Honestly, I think that is the way many Christians are perceived, i.e., dragging around death and decay rather than overflowing with life.

The "master" language grabs me here. To whom do I "offer" myself as a sacrifice? The text says "do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but offer yourselves to God. . ." Every action today will be an offering. Every choice, every thought, every word, every behavior will be an offering to one of two gods. Tomorrow morning when I look back at the last 24 hours, my composite offering will tell me whom I truly serve and if I truly lived . . . or just dragged around death for another day.