HOME | DD

Description
Loving Sacrifice

As we spend time in church we tend to hear the phrase, "Living a life of sacrifice" then we hear a message about how, and why we should live this type of life. I am not here to go against that practice, now am I going to attack the idea of living why we live that way. But I do have the intention of putting some doubt into your minds, possibly offending you, sounds like a fun thing right?

Now lets look at the usual thing that is said when we are told to live a life of sacrifice. We live in the world, but we are called to be apart from the world, we are not supposed to live in the flesh, but in the spirit. Yet we are of the flesh, this sounds almost like circular reasoning, but when we break it down a little bit we are able to see what it is really telling us. Yes we live in the world, and thanks to actions in the past we have been thrown into the world of sin. But there is hope because we have this great thing called a spirit. With this spirit we are able to do things that are separate from the world we live in. No I am not talking about magic, or anything visually stunning, just the simple things like walking away from something, giving up an addiction, and stopping something we enjoy. These don't sound like something that would be difficult. But they all depend on who you are, and what you have gone through. Lets examine some situations, I am sitting in a Hastings at the moment typing this up as it comes to mind, but the location gives me some get opportunity to see people around me, and watch how they are behaving. A few moments ago a small child was following her mother out of the book section pouting. The first thought that comes to mind is that she wanted to get something she likes, a simple book that looked cute perhaps, but to walk away from it, and not get that book was enough to ruin her day. This is a small thing to most of us, because we can look at it and realize, that she would play with the book for a few hours, and probably, never open the book again. Wasting $10.00 that we really don't have to spend today. But the little girl looked at the book like something that she needed, and because she thought she needed it, it cause her to depend on getting that book today. While we may all laugh at this, and understand it as something a kid would do. Let us look at something we can associate with a bit easier. While I was in training for my AFSC at Keesler we had an interesting schedule, we would get up at 0345 to be outside, formed up and ready to workout by 0400, then do a workout till 0500, then be required to be formed up outside, showered, shaven, and dressed to military standards by 0600. When you factor in that you are sharing your living space with another person, running on the same schedule, you can see how this can cause you to run on a tight schedule, and not have time to waste. Some people would eat breakfast by rushing through everything, but most of us would take our time and relax before we started our day of instruction. When you got to your schoolhouse, you usually had about 15minutes to get upstairs and into your seats. They conveniently placed a food truck right outside the doors, which naturally had high prices for low quality food. However 5days a week, you would find the same majority standing in line spending 8$ a day on breakfast, instead of simply running out the door and eating a full breakfast for free at the DFAC before we had to step off. Same concept.. that's $160 a month spent on a small, and horrible breakfast, because we didn't want to give up 10minutes of relaxation. Apply this scenario to cigarettes, or morning coffee, eating out every day for lunch or dinner. Same scenario as the child and her book. We refuse to sacrifice our convenience, in return we lose a good amount of our money. How does this tie into our topic of living a life of sacrifice though. The above situations are small, day to day things that we do, but apply the same type of thing to drug addictions, and sex addictions. If people know my testimony, then they will know about the things I experimented with before finding the Lord, the benefits of living that kind of life are few and far between. But I believe in a bright side to everything, by living that type of life, and being around those kind of people, those kind of things. I am now able to relate with people in similar situations, and see the warning signs. I am also able to understand why people can say one day that they want to stop, but the next day they will be strung out on something again. It is very easy for us to sit in our churches, and pray for people to get off of drugs, or for them to stop thinking lustfully about every woman that they come in contact with. But take a moment and place yourself in their shoes- If you can. Imagine living everyday being unable to control yourself, picture yourself sitting in a store with your friends and family, your children, your best friends, people whose opinions mean a lot to you. Out of the corner of you eye you catch a glimpse of tan skin sliding out of your sight. Naturally you look over to see what it was, and you find yourself looking at a woman wearing jean shorts that come down just below the cusp of her butt. With rich olive skin, a tight and firm figure, and a breathtaking face. You realize that you are being watched by those around you, and you want to stop looking at this woman, but you cannot. Not because she looks beautiful, but because when you look at the way she is dressed, you begin to desire to be with her, immediately your opinion of this stranger lowers to nothing more than a piece of meat at an auction, appraising every portion of her body. I believe that if you look at this scenario, and use your past experiences you will admit to yourselves that you have done this before to a woman, or a man. Many of you may have realized what was happening and were able to stop. As for myself, I was not able to do this until recently. No matter how much I wanted to stop looking at every woman like that, I couldn't help it. I knew that people around me begun to think poorly of me because of it. I began to think poorly of myself also, however wanting to stop an action, and being able to stop an action are two very different things. Has this happened to you? Is it happening to you? The same happens with drugs, people will know that the drug is ruining their lives, but they will sell everything they own, and hurt those that love them in order to get their next high. The purpose of these examples isn't to tell you how to give these things up, the answer is God, but that isn't the reason I brought them up. They are extremes of things we want to give up, but wont.

When living a life of sacrifice, it isn't enough to give up something that we may like doing. No in fact living a life of sacrifice, while it sounds pretty, isn't the whole truth as to how we should live. We should live a life of loving sacrifice. One word, but a very important, and powerful word. Love when we examine what love has done to the world we live in, we are able to see that love is the single most destructive force known in history. How else did the our Savior come to earth? The Savior that was powerful enough to take all our sins, and give us eternal life. Nothing but love. When we read those stories in the paper, that talk about people running into fires to save people, lifting cars off of loved ones, armies holding off superior forces, nations fighting each other because of simple things. They all fall back to love, love for fellow man, love for people they care about, love for their nations! Love an spur people to do things they would never consider, cause people to fight through the pain, and fight through others telling them that they can't! When we sacrifice to the Lord, we no longer need to kill an animal, thanks to the love of Jesus, which pushed him to die, alone on the cross in order to save all of us for eternity. In order for us to live a healthy spiritual life though, one that is pleasing to God, we should still sacrifice, but instead of sacrificing an animal, something that is not a part of us. We are called to sacrifice something that we love. But when sacrificing this, to do it with a loving attitude, not one of anger, or remorse! If we are following after the heard of God, just like David then we should have the desire to please the Lord. Would the Lord be pleased by you sacrificing Monday night football to spend an hour in prayer? Perhaps, would he be pleased If you sacrificed eating Cheetos? Maybe. That is what makes this topic so hard to place a finger on, what we should sacrifice is different for each and every one of us. The beauty of this though, is that finding out what the Lord wants us to sacrifice is as simple as asking. Pray to the Lord, "Father I pray that you will would be done in my life, that you would light my lantern, and allow me to be a fire to those around me. Lord if there is anything in my life that is keeping me from you, I ask of you Lord, make it known to me." A simple prayer asking for the Lord to make something known to you, usually does the trick, if you look deeply into your heart. I am sure most of you will be able to pinpoint that one thing that gives you a sick feeling in your stomach when you do it. It may not anymore, you can teach yourself to ignore things that make you dislike who you are. But look into your heart, and listen for the Lords guidance, you will be able to notice something that burn into your mind. Lust, drugs, relationships, friends, activities, anything, a great indicator is that you can find yourself making up reasons that this can't be the answer from God, reasons why you can't give it up. Once you pinpoint what it is, you will need to make the realization that this is something that you need to sacrifice. From their depending on what it is, you will need to begin sacrificing it. A close friend of mine once had a boyfriend who loved to smoke marijuana. He also loved his beautiful girlfriend. Samantha had a very rough history with smoking, family members who had smoked did not have great outcomes. Because of this she has a very strong opinion against smoking, anyone that she had the slightest care for would get an earful for smoking. But for someone that she loved dearly to smoke, and something illegal on top of it. This was not something she could deal with, Samantha spoke to Bill about what he was doing, and about how she felt. She loved him and did not want him to be injuring himself by smoking. Because of Bill's love for Samantha he told her that he would stop immediately. I wish that this was what happened, because Bill did love Samantha, perhaps he still does. But he loved marijuana as well, and he was not prepared to give up something he loved-even for someone he loved. Samantha found out, and left Bill, imagine walking away from someone that you love; with the realization that the only reason you are walking away is because they loved an action more than someone who has given them everything out of love. Samantha to this day has not found someone to make her feel the same way as Bill, she will I am sure, but there will always be a scar on her heart from it. How do you think God feels? God loves us so much more than any person on this earth, no matter the extent that we can love our boyfriends, wives, can ever amount the the amount that God loves us. When we walk away from God because we will not give an action up, even though he has given us everything. God goes so far as to even say he will take all of our burdens! The things in our life that we sacrifice to him, he will be there an comfort us, and aid us in the sacrifice! But when we know what God has called us to sacrifice, and we don't even make the cry for help. How do you think Gods heart looks after that?

These ramblings are simply meant to make you think about the things you have knowingly held onto when they need to be given unto the Lord. Give you a representation of the affects of doing this, and make a plea to you about how worthwhile it is to give up those things.
-God Bless,
Christian Crill

Description
Loving Sacrifice

As we spend time in church we tend to hear the phrase, "Living a life of sacrifice" then we hear a message about how, and why we should live this type of life. I am not here to go against that practice, now am I going to attack the idea of living why we live that way. But I do have the intention of putting some doubt into your minds, possibly offending you, sounds like a fun thing right?

Now lets look at the usual thing that is said when we are told to live a life of sacrifice. We live in the world, but we are called to be apart from the world, we are not supposed to live in the flesh, but in the spirit. Yet we are of the flesh, this sounds almost like circular reasoning, but when we break it down a little bit we are able to see what it is really telling us. Yes we live in the world, and thanks to actions in the past we have been thrown into the world of sin. But there is hope because we have this great thing called a spirit. With this spirit we are able to do things that are separate from the world we live in. No I am not talking about magic, or anything visually stunning, just the simple things like walking away from something, giving up an addiction, and stopping something we enjoy. These don't sound like something that would be difficult. But they all depend on who you are, and what you have gone through. Lets examine some situations, I am sitting in a Hastings at the moment typing this up as it comes to mind, but the location gives me some get opportunity to see people around me, and watch how they are behaving. A few moments ago a small child was following her mother out of the book section pouting. The first thought that comes to mind is that she wanted to get something she likes, a simple book that looked cute perhaps, but to walk away from it, and not get that book was enough to ruin her day. This is a small thing to most of us, because we can look at it and realize, that she would play with the book for a few hours, and probably, never open the book again. Wasting $10.00 that we really don't have to spend today. But the little girl looked at the book like something that she needed, and because she thought she needed it, it cause her to depend on getting that book today. While we may all laugh at this, and understand it as something a kid would do. Let us look at something we can associate with a bit easier. While I was in training for my AFSC at Keesler we had an interesting schedule, we would get up at 0345 to be outside, formed up and ready to workout by 0400, then do a workout till 0500, then be required to be formed up outside, showered, shaven, and dressed to military standards by 0600. When you factor in that you are sharing your living space with another person, running on the same schedule, you can see how this can cause you to run on a tight schedule, and not have time to waste. Some people would eat breakfast by rushing through everything, but most of us would take our time and relax before we started our day of instruction. When you got to your schoolhouse, you usually had about 15minutes to get upstairs and into your seats. They conveniently placed a food truck right outside the doors, which naturally had high prices for low quality food. However 5days a week, you would find the same majority standing in line spending 8$ a day on breakfast, instead of simply running out the door and eating a full breakfast for free at the DFAC before we had to step off. Same concept.. that's $160 a month spent on a small, and horrible breakfast, because we didn't want to give up 10minutes of relaxation. Apply this scenario to cigarettes, or morning coffee, eating out every day for lunch or dinner. Same scenario as the child and her book. We refuse to sacrifice our convenience, in return we lose a good amount of our money. How does this tie into our topic of living a life of sacrifice though. The above situations are small, day to day things that we do, but apply the same type of thing to drug addictions, and sex addictions. If people know my testimony, then they will know about the things I experimented with before finding the Lord, the benefits of living that kind of life are few and far between. But I believe in a bright side to everything, by living that type of life, and being around those kind of people, those kind of things. I am now able to relate with people in similar situations, and see the warning signs. I am also able to understand why people can say one day that they want to stop, but the next day they will be strung out on something again. It is very easy for us to sit in our churches, and pray for people to get off of drugs, or for them to stop thinking lustfully about every woman that they come in contact with. But take a moment and place yourself in their shoes- If you can. Imagine living everyday being unable to control yourself, picture yourself sitting in a store with your friends and family, your children, your best friends, people whose opinions mean a lot to you. Out of the corner of you eye you catch a glimpse of tan skin sliding out of your sight. Naturally you look over to see what it was, and you find yourself looking at a woman wearing jean shorts that come down just below the cusp of her butt. With rich olive skin, a tight and firm figure, and a breathtaking face. You realize that you are being watched by those around you, and you want to stop looking at this woman, but you cannot. Not because she looks beautiful, but because when you look at the way she is dressed, you begin to desire to be with her, immediately your opinion of this stranger lowers to nothing more than a piece of meat at an auction, appraising every portion of her body. I believe that if you look at this scenario, and use your past experiences you will admit to yourselves that you have done this before to a woman, or a man. Many of you may have realized what was happening and were able to stop. As for myself, I was not able to do this until recently. No matter how much I wanted to stop looking at every woman like that, I couldn't help it. I knew that people around me begun to think poorly of me because of it. I began to think poorly of myself also, however wanting to stop an action, and being able to stop an action are two very different things. Has this happened to you? Is it happening to you? The same happens with drugs, people will know that the drug is ruining their lives, but they will sell everything they own, and hurt those that love them in order to get their next high. The purpose of these examples isn't to tell you how to give these things up, the answer is God, but that isn't the reason I brought them up. They are extremes of things we want to give up, but wont.

When living a life of sacrifice, it isn't enough to give up something that we may like doing. No in fact living a life of sacrifice, while it sounds pretty, isn't the whole truth as to how we should live. We should live a life of loving sacrifice. One word, but a very important, and powerful word. Love when we examine what love has done to the world we live in, we are able to see that love is the single most destructive force known in history. How else did the our Savior come to earth? The Savior that was powerful enough to take all our sins, and give us eternal life. Nothing but love. When we read those stories in the paper, that talk about people running into fires to save people, lifting cars off of loved ones, armies holding off superior forces, nations fighting each other because of simple things. They all fall back to love, love for fellow man, love for people they care about, love for their nations! Love an spur people to do things they would never consider, cause people to fight through the pain, and fight through others telling them that they can't! When we sacrifice to the Lord, we no longer need to kill an animal, thanks to the love of Jesus, which pushed him to die, alone on the cross in order to save all of us for eternity. In order for us to live a healthy spiritual life though, one that is pleasing to God, we should still sacrifice, but instead of sacrificing an animal, something that is not a part of us. We are called to sacrifice something that we love. But when sacrificing this, to do it with a loving attitude, not one of anger, or remorse! If we are following after the heard of God, just like David then we should have the desire to please the Lord. Would the Lord be pleased by you sacrificing Monday night football to spend an hour in prayer? Perhaps, would he be pleased If you sacrificed eating Cheetos? Maybe. That is what makes this topic so hard to place a finger on, what we should sacrifice is different for each and every one of us. The beauty of this though, is that finding out what the Lord wants us to sacrifice is as simple as asking. Pray to the Lord, "Father I pray that you will would be done in my life, that you would light my lantern, and allow me to be a fire to those around me. Lord if there is anything in my life that is keeping me from you, I ask of you Lord, make it known to me." A simple prayer asking for the Lord to make something known to you, usually does the trick, if you look deeply into your heart. I am sure most of you will be able to pinpoint that one thing that gives you a sick feeling in your stomach when you do it. It may not anymore, you can teach yourself to ignore things that make you dislike who you are. But look into your heart, and listen for the Lords guidance, you will be able to notice something that burn into your mind. Lust, drugs, relationships, friends, activities, anything, a great indicator is that you can find yourself making up reasons that this can't be the answer from God, reasons why you can't give it up. Once you pinpoint what it is, you will need to make the realization that this is something that you need to sacrifice. From their depending on what it is, you will need to begin sacrificing it. A close friend of mine once had a boyfriend who loved to smoke marijuana. He also loved his beautiful girlfriend. Samantha had a very rough history with smoking, family members who had smoked did not have great outcomes. Because of this she has a very strong opinion against smoking, anyone that she had the slightest care for would get an earful for smoking. But for someone that she loved dearly to smoke, and something illegal on top of it. This was not something she could deal with, Samantha spoke to Bill about what he was doing, and about how she felt. She loved him and did not want him to be injuring himself by smoking. Because of Bill's love for Samantha he told her that he would stop immediately. I wish that this was what happened, because Bill did love Samantha, perhaps he still does. But he loved marijuana as well, and he was not prepared to give up something he loved-even for someone he loved. Samantha found out, and left Bill, imagine walking away from someone that you love; with the realization that the only reason you are walking away is because they loved an action more than someone who has given them everything out of love. Samantha to this day has not found someone to make her feel the same way as Bill, she will I am sure, but there will always be a scar on her heart from it. How do you think God feels? God loves us so much more than any person on this earth, no matter the extent that we can love our boyfriends, wives, can ever amount the the amount that God loves us. When we walk away from God because we will not give an action up, even though he has given us everything. God goes so far as to even say he will take all of our burdens! The things in our life that we sacrifice to him, he will be there an comfort us, and aid us in the sacrifice! But when we know what God has called us to sacrifice, and we don't even make the cry for help. How do you think Gods heart looks after that?

These ramblings are simply meant to make you think about the things you have knowingly held onto when they need to be given unto the Lord. Give you a representation of the affects of doing this, and make a plea to you about how worthwhile it is to give up those things.
-God Bless,
Christian Crill