The Sacrifice

The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart. Psalm 51:17

 

The Lord is looking for us to step fully into the water, not to merely dip our toes. He is looking for us to bring our blind, hardened and aching hearts, lay them on before Him and allow Him to tenderize us. There is no “half in”. Either we’re in or not. Either we trust Him with our hearts or we don’t. And part of doing so means we trust Him to re-teach us whatever it is that is in us that doesn't agree with Him. Without a tender heart, we will not have the discernment to know what that is. We can't be like Jesus at all with hearts of stone. 

 

Under the Old Testament covenant, everyone in the tribes of Israel was required to offer sacrifices at the temple under very strict rules. Every sin of every person was to be atoned for by the offering of their most perfect livestock. They couldn’t keep it for themselves; they had to offer it as a means of fulfilling their end of the covenant and to prove they trusted God to provide more. However, under the new covenant the blood of Jesus atones for all of us-once!  We are no longer required to offer up livestock to atone for our sins. But we still have a part in this- we are called to offer up the sacrifice of our whole hearts. This takes a whole lot more courage and faith. Laying down our walls is no easy task!

 

To follow Jesus is an invitation that comes with the calling to offer up your whole heart to Him. You expose it to what He wants, you keep it tender to hear His voice and you allow Him to break your heart for what breaks His. It means we accept a life of pain and hurt and allow it to shape us into being more useful to others who share similar experiences. Without pain, we can never relate to the lost and broken. Without ever having been broken ourselves, how can we assure others that He still heals? 

 

Let's be honest, we’re all human and have a tendency in all to clench up. We harden our hearts out of fear and a habit of guarding ourselves. But God can be trusted with our hearts. He can be trusted to do right by us. Sure, having a tender heart is going to mean pain. But that pain makes us more like Him, more compassionate, merciful, forgiving, and others-centered. When life is easy, the human heart has a habit of becoming entitled, judgmental, self-centered and merciless. We get comfortable and lazy. We become all about making our lives even more comfortable, not able helping others. It ain't pretty! But when we allow our hearts to be broken by what breaks His, we honor our part of the covenant- offering our hearts as an unwavering sacrifice to fulfill His desires. 

We cannot “follow the rules”, yet keep our hearts from His touch and expect to be made righteous. For it takes more courage and faith to give your heart to someone you cannot see than it does to live morally right. I’m not saying that living morally right is bad; I am saying that it’s not enough to please God. It takes a relationship built on trust to lay your heart bare and let The Great Heart Doctor do whatever He wants with it. Allowing God to hold your bare heart and have free reign with it opens you up to a wide range of experiences with Him, teaching you more about who He really is and who he is calling you to be. 

 

When we live with the mission of protecting ourselves, we wall up and miss out on chances to connect with God and people. I believe people who do this are more miserable than those who are tender. There is so much to gain from life that you can only get by having a tender heart. At least that's been my experience. You see, He doesn’t just call us to lay our bare hearts out there unprotected. He protects us. If we trust Him by staying tender, we get greater protection from Him than we could ever provide ourselves.

 

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, 

And His ears are open to their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,

To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears,

And delivers them out of their troubles.

The Lord is near those who have a broken heart, 

And saves such as have a contrite spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, 

But the Lord delivers him out of them all.

He guards all his bones; 

Not one of them is broken.

Evil shall slay the wicked, 

And those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.

The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, 

And none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.

Psalm 34: 15-22