A few people have told me that they've been reading my blog without reading Oswald. I'm flattered, but if you're reading today, please click on the link at the right, read Oswald, and then enter into a discussion with me -- via posted comments or in person -- about what it means to be a living sacrifice. The language of today's entry may have been fresher when My Utmost was written, but I am having difficulty putting the thoughts into my everyday language. What is the difference between "giving things up" and "being a living sacrifice"?
I am also confused by Oswald's use of the story of Abraham being prepared to sacrifice Isaac. Was that not what God called Abraham to do? Was Abraham confused? Oswald writes that "God purified Abraham from this blunder." What does he mean by that?
Jim Eliot said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
My questions:
- How do I go about "loosening the bands that hinder my life"?
- Is God calling me to give something up in exchange for life with him?
- What does it mean to be a living sacrifice?
Barbara
A good friend emailed me these very insightful comments:
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I'm right but I've always thought OC was harking to the cultural custom of killing a live person as the ultimate offering to God. Dying physically. Abraham was cured of the belief that God wanted that from people. Every culture around him saw that as the ultimate act of worship that a god wanted. Abraham thought it might be true of his God, too.
Instead, he came to believe God wanted him to give to God the son that would perpetuate his name, his line. God wanted Abraham to give the dream back and say, it's OK if that's what God wants to do. The boy is His, the dream is His, the plan is His; He can do what He wants with it. I trust, I cling to God more than I trust/cling to the dream I've always hung onto. Thereby, Isaac became a living sacrifice -- still breathing but truly sacrificed, let go of. Handed over to God for whatever God wanted to do with him.
When we follow in Abraham's footsteps, we find that God wants us to quit clinging and claiming our right to hold onto people, ideas, attitudes, rights, beliefs, fears, or whatever else keeps us from accepting Jesus' attitude in life: his willingness to absolutely trust his Father with every insult, every decision, every plan, every mood and freely let God put Him anywhere, saying/doing anything the Father wanted Him to say or do. That made Jesus a living sacrifice -- every breath was given to God without Jesus demanding a human right to do what He wanted to do with that breath (or that word or that attitude or that silence or that action).
Until we do the same thing, we have a stand-offish relationship with God. We make all the decisions we want to make and once in a while let God make one. That is not being a living sacrifice; it's once in a while giving up a small decision to the sacrificial fire but holding all the important ones for ourselves. It will never result in beauty.
If you want to loosen the bands that hinder your life, you throw off your rights to yourself and let God do what He wants and you elect to obey Him when He shows you things about yourself you don't like looking at but that are true nonetheless.