We do not have to be crucified
on pieces of wood by J. R. Miller The Wider Life, 1908 I urge you brothers, in view
of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of
worship. Romans 12 1 The godly life is
not one of ease, pleasure and self-indulgence. We are taught
to present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God. Ancient offerings
were brought to the altar and presented dead. But the Christian
sacrifice, instead of being poured out in a bloody oblation, is
to be a living sacrifice of service, of love, of devotion. The great
sacrifice of Christ is both the model for all Christian life
and also its inspiration. We look at His six hours on the
cross as if that were its only act and expression. But the cross
was not endured by Christ merely during those six hours on Calvary. It was in all his life, in every
day and hour of it. Everything he did was in love,
and love is always a living sacrifice. He was always sacrificing himself. On Calvary, he only wrote the
word out in capital letters. The cross stands not merely for
the sufferings of Christ endured in redeeming sinners, but also
for the law of love and of sacrifice in every department of Christian
living. It is not enough to have the
cross on our churches as a symbol of redemption. or to wear crucifixes
as ornaments, the cross and the crucifix must be in the heart
and manifested in the life. We talk a great deal about the
love of Christ, but we must strive to illustrate it and reproduce
in our own lives, in our own measure, the sweetness, the charity,
the kindness and the helpfulness of Jesus Christ. The cross is
everywhere. The more of the sacrificial quality
we get into our life, the diviner and the lovelier our life will
be. We do not have to be crucified
on pieces of wood to bear a cross and make a living sacrifice.
The cross must be in the lives of those who follow Christ not
branded on their bodies, but wrought into their character,
their disposition, their conduct, their spirit. We cannot live
a Christian life for a day without coming to points of sacrifice.
The cross of Christ does not take our own cross from us. Christ
does not bear our cross for us. His cross becomes the law of
our life and makes it all sacrificial. Every sacrificial thing we do
reveals the cross. The Beatitudes are all sacrificial. No one can live the thirteenth
chapter of 1 Corinthians and not crucify self continually. All sacrifice at length blossoms
into Christlike beauty, sweetness, and joy.