This audio message is number 8 in the series "Counter Cultural Keys of God's Kingdom", given by Pastor Reid Matthis at the 8:45am service on 25 Oct 2020.
We live in a world that is allergic to sacrifice. Saving for a rainy day is an Olympic sport. Taking the smaller portion is anathema to us. In the book of Romans, though, Paul writes to a group of people who need to be introduced to a strange pattern not of the world: living sacrifice.
This is ridiculous. All sacrifices are intended as the death of one thing for the life and betterment of another. For the Romans and many religions, animals were ritualistically sacrificed on altars – their lives offered up for the atonement of sins to appease the ‘gods.’ Now, Paul pulls the rug out from the substitutional model of sacrifice to a living model of service.
Read Romans 12:1-8 and pray for God’s transformation in your life so that you recognise your walking, sacrificial living.