I was reading a quote the other day by William Temple (1881-1944). He wrote, “The principle of sacrifice is that we choose to do or to suffer what apart from our love we should not choose to do or to suffer.”
For some reason, this quote really spoke to me.
First of all, love is one of the strongest motivations for sacrifice. It is difficult to sacrifice to someone or for someone unless we love them. As God as our example, He so loved us that he “gave His one and only Son.”
Secondly, we will never have enough love within ourselves to make any kind of sacrifice. This is another argument why sacrifice that is done without God’s love but our own, will always fall short. In fact, it almost always leads to self-righteousness and pride.
Therefore, when a sacrifice is made it becomes a beautiful thing when it is motivated by a love for God and enabled by His grace. But more than sacrifices, God is pleased with a broken and contrite heart (Ps 51:17). As we come to God with this kind of humility and brokenness, God will empower us to give of ourselves as a living sacrifice (Ro 12:1).
We need to start seeing more people in our generation who will be marked as people, who are willing to lay down their lives as a living sacrifice unto the Lord. Oh, what God can do with a group of these kinds of people!