Sacrifice

This month is supposed to be a month about love. Love is about giving . We have established this already and there is no higher form of giving than sacrifice.  There is no worship without sacrifice. Whether it’s your time or your substance or your life, there is always sacrifice. So now let’s have a look at sacrifice.

According to the Miriam Web dictionary, sacrifice is an act of offering to a deity something precious or the destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.

Four things to consider when talking about sacrifice;

1. What is sacrifice?

2. why do we have to sacrifice?

3. Benefits of sacrifice, are there any?

4. How do we sacrifice?

Why?

Before we look at why, let’s look at one man’s sacrifice from the bible.

I king 19-19-21

We meet Elisha who is saddled with a 12 yoke  oxen plugging the field, busy trying to make for himself a fortune, while minding his own business.  Elijah happened to be passing by and upon seeing Elisha; he removes his mantle and places it on him. This causes Elisha to leave everything and follow Elijah, but on their way, he realises that he has left in a rush, so he asks Elijah permission to go home and say good bye to his parents.  Elijah’s response was simple, what has that got to do with me.  If you want to go, go, if you want to stay, stay, the decision is yours.

When sacrificing, you don’t wait for someone to come tell you to sacrifice.  Elijah knew one basic principle about sacrifice, it is not something someone tells you to do, it is something you choose to do.   You make the decision, it is the only way God respects that decision. Remember Saul, he disobeyed God because people put pressure on him to sacrifice. We will come back to that in more detail later.

When Elisha heard Elijah’s response he went on home broke the yoke of the oxen, sacrificed the animals, gave it as an offering, and followed Elijah never looking back.

To be continued....
Written by Aba Dadson

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