Your Sacrifice Can Change Lives

“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house

to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices

acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

I Peter 2:5

Some time ago in our community some people sacrificed a few hours of their Saturday morning to run a race and raise funds for the developmentally disabled in our community. Did anyone in the race die that morning? Did they sacrifice their all? No. Were millions of dollars raised that morning? No. But make no mistake about it; sacrifices were made and lives will be changed as a result.

You see, sometimes if we hear the statement Sacrifice Changes Lives we immediately think of grand and mighty acts of sacrifice. I think we sometimes do that as a cop-out. After all, we say, I am not capable of making the sacrifices that Jesus or the Apostle Paul or even Mother Teresa made. Maybe not; but who says you have to? The Bible tells us in Zechariah not to despise the day of small beginnings. Maybe your life has been marked by selfishness, but as God has been speaking to us about sacrificial living, you have determined to be obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit as He leads you.

Small beginnings can lead to great endings.

Jesus talked about it when he spoke of faith and likened it to a mustard seed. 

So you want to move from selfishness to sacrifice. Don’t be frustrated by baby steps. Those baby steps can still change lives and that includes the changes God wants to accomplish in you. The sacrifice you make of a T.V. program to pray for someone who is in need of prayer can mean the difference in that person’s life. Extending kindness instead of rebuking the sales clerk who made a mistake in your transaction may not seem like a huge sacrifice but maybe it is enough to make all the difference in their crazy day. You wanted to respond in anger but instead sacrificed the flesh on the altar of self-denial and responded with the love of Christ.

A small beginning?  Maybe.

But maybe it was a small beginning that changed a life.

Theirs and yours.