Living Sacrifice

The Canon of Prayer: Day 22

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1)

Paul calls our attention to a key principle for realizing our identity; He tells us to offer ourselves, our lives to God as a living sacrifice. Being a Living Sacrifice is a dual principle that must be realized by the believer before the believer can realize their identity in God. As we appropriate these concepts we will begin to be conform to the image of His Son as God purposed. The first is the perspective that we are crucified with Christ and the second is that there is a requirement which every sacrifice must met before it can be offered. Let’s look at each individually before we pray the prayer of Living Sacrifice.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

(Galatians 2:20)

As believers, we are to identify ourselves as being crucified, dead with Christ. The “old man”, our flesh, our sin nature must be crucified (Romans 6:1-14). We must get to the place in our walk with God that we live from the attitude that I no longer live governed by my flesh but, the life I now live, I live surrendered to the governing of God and I pledge my allegiance to God. When something is dead, it has no activity, no movement, no life; we are to bring an end to the activity of sin in our lives. When we deny sin activity in our lives, we suffocate, starve the flesh to death; we crucify the flesh. Jesus said for us to take up our cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24), if you don’t take up your cross, crucify the flesh you can’t be a part of the family (Luke 14:27). In Ephesians we are told to put off the old man and put on the new man.

And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish. (Leviticus 1:10)

Traditionally, whenever an offering was offered unto the Lord; it had to meet a specific requirement; the above text tells us that it had to be without blemish. Paul said that we are to present our bodies as a Living Sacrifice, without blemish-Holy. As we offer our lives to the Lord, the acceptable requirement is the same as it has always been. Jesus also met the requirement, living a sinless life (Hebrews 4:15) and then He offer His life for us (1 Peter 1:19). If we are going to offer our lives as a Living Sacrifice, we need to meet the minimum requirement that God has established; holiness. We must sanctify ourselves, separate ourselves from the world “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” (1 John 2:16) We need to possess our vessel in sanctification and honor (1 Thessalonian 4:4), then offer that vessel to God.

Prayer

Father we offer our lives as a Living Sacrifice, we sanctify ourselves unto you. We crucify our flesh today and surrender to your rule and reign over our lives. We take off the old man and we put on the new man, we walk in newness of life. We take your identity as our identity and we walk-live as Kings in the earth.

I declare that we live our lives from the attitude that we no longer live governed by our flesh but the life we now live, we live surrendered to the government of the King and we pledge our allegiance to the King and the Kingdom of Heaven. We sanctify ourselves; separate ourselves from the world and the thing of the world.

This is the Decree of the King