The Heart of Sacrifice
What would you be willing to give up to follow Jesus? How desperate would you have to be in order to turn your back on everything in your life, to lose everything and everyone in it, so that you can have Jesus?
This is the daily reality of those who come out of Islam. To leave Islam is punishable by death. They know it, and their families know it. Over the past 12 years, Cathy and I have witnessed former Muslims experience and live out Jesus’ exact words in Matthew 10. It literally costs them everything to come to Christ.
Sacrifice is a word that brings to mind many ideas and emotions. Christians who hear this word might turn their thoughts to Old Testament passages dealing with endless blood sacrifices God required of His people to deal with sin. They will then turn their thoughts to the fact that Jesus came to Earth as the ultimate and final sacrifice for sin—concluding that as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, there is no sacrifice required of His disciples. But, is that what Jesus taught us?
In Matthew 10:34-38, Jesus tells us:
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.
Jesus again states, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” –Mark 8:35.
In Luke 14:33 Jesus says, “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”
In Micah 7:6 it is said:
Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
While the world is trying to determine if Jesus is worthy of making this kind of a sacrifice, Jesus knows whether or not we are worthy to follow him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer summed it up in saying that, “Salvation is a free gift, but following Jesus will cost you your very life.” The word ‘sacrifice’ takes us to the heart of the Gospel.
Do I follow Jesus? Is Jesus my life, or have I just added a form of Jesus to the life I want to live? If my life is driven more by my own desires, comforts, opinions, and preferences, I may not be following Jesus at all. Do we desire his eternal life in us, yet want nothing to do with his death and suffering?
Ask yourself, “What happens to a sacrifice on an altar?” Death. Death is what happens on an altar. Many followers of Jesus come to the altar of repentance and then walk away having dealt with their sin—but never dealing with their sinful nature. Only my own death in Christ can accomplish this.
Jesus says being his disciple involves participating in his death, suffering the same shame and disgrace he bore (Hebrews 13:13), losing my life, denying myself daily and finding my life only in him (Matthew 10:39). Only in death—the absolute giving up of every part of myself—and daily bearing the cross of the crucified Christ in all its power to kill and make dead is his life made manifest in me. The only way to life is the way of the cross.
Paul puts it this way: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” –Philippians 3:10-11.
The reality is that when I am obedient to Jesus, I am crucified with him and no longer live (Colossians 2:20). His life becomes my life. Because he lives, I now live (John 14:19). When I take up my cross every day, I am submitting and laying down my life before him as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). I allow him to shape me into his own likeness with ever-increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3:17). He moves me from death to life. “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal bodies” –2 Corinthians 4:11.
Death is the narrow gate, the narrow road (Matthew 7:13-14), that leads to life in Christ. He must do something new in me. Unless I am re-created, I can never fit into the new realm of his Kingdom. Jesus tells us plainly: “Unless one is born again, they cannot see the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. No one can enter the Kingdom unless they are born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:3,5-6).
Paul restates in 1 Corinthians 15:50: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” No matter the efforts I undertake; no matter how educated, how cultured or seemingly improved I may appear, my flesh will still be, and only ever be Christ-less.
My worthiness to belong to Jesus is determined solely by the creation to which I belong. Do I belong to the old creation or the new? Entering the Kingdom of Heaven hinges on one question: the question of our origin.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh and it will never be anything else. That which originates of the old creation can never enter into the new creation. Only when I am able to accept the fact that I have been crucified with Christ and my flesh no longer lives, will I be able to comprehend that I can never contribute anything from my flesh again. I am new. I am changed. He sees His life in me.
It is within the cross of Christ, that God put to death all things that are not part of Himself. He has now reconciled all things to Himself through Jesus’ death (Colossians 1:19-20). The cross stands forever as a sentinel, which eternally proclaims that God has put to death all things from the old realm. Everything that had its origin before the resurrection is wiped out. Nothing of the old may pass beyond the cross; it all ends there. My sinful nature cannot pass!
It is the resurrection of Jesus Christ which now stands at the threshold of this new Kingdom and it is the only means by which anyone ever enters. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s new starting point for His new creation. Resurrection life is only available to those who have died.
This is the real question of my worthiness for the Kingdom of Heaven. This choice doesn’t just happen once. Instead, it happens every single day as I choose to deny myself, take up my cross and follow Him. This is the true sacrifice that Jesus asks of each of us.