SACRIFICE Part 1

 

Sacrifice is good but not all sacrifice is recommendable. You may wonder why sacrifice most especially for people of double mind but I want you to understand that there are cases where sacrifice is required in other to yield fruit and there are cases where there is no amount of sacrifice that can salvage the situation or bring to bear the long awaited miracle. Therefore are you among the category that specializes in sacrifice and believe so much in it? My question to you as you ponder on this piece is why are you sacrificing and what type of sacrifice do you involved yourself into? Let see what sacrifice is so as to give us a clear picture on where we are going.

WHAT IS SACRIFICE?
Sacrifice according to oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary means the art of giving up something important or valuable to you in order to get or do something that seems more important. This definition is more highly structured and the phrases are correctly arranged. Have you seen what sacrifice is? Giving out something important to you in order to receive something more important than the important! This is beautiful but before we proceed I will like you to note three phrase from the definition of sacrifice viz; a) important thing b) Receive c) Valuable. Let see this mathematics (something important +valuable = receive). The sum total of your valuable gives the result (outcome).

TYPES OF SACRIFICE:
There are two types of sacrifice I want to share with you viz; a) negative and b) positive sacrifice.
For those of you that are familiar with electricity, you know very well that without the positive wire – i.e. wire that carries energy added to the negative wire known as the supporter, they can be no illumination (light) in our homes. In this context, positive and negative are interrelated. Today we will extensively look at the positive types of sacrifice and in the concluding part of this message (i.e. next week); we will then see what negative sacrifice is all about.

Exodus 2:11-15 A positive sacrifice is one that yields a positive result no matter the procedure involved. We all are familiar with the circumstance that surrounded the birth of Moses but it came to pass when he was of age knowing too well where he came from and the challenges that has befall his people, he simply sacrifice. Positive sacrifice changed peoples status and catapult them to the next level in life. After his sacrifice he was force to flee to Median – a journey that causes him to meet God before the burning bush. God would not have had the opportunity to meet with Moses –a means of getting close to salvage the condition with which the people (God’s people were into). The sacrifice of Job is what we all should cast our minds back to. Upon the troubles that surrounded him, the scriptures in Job19 reveal to us that “Job trust in his Redeemer”.  I believe we all know the story of Job but my question to you is was Job vindicated? Of course yes – that is positive sacrifice.

Jesus Christ our mediator is another character I will include here as among the people that keyed into positive sacrifice by deciding to come and connect man back to God after losing out from the race. The Bible clearly instructed us that life is a race where every body competes for the crown and it is only one man that receives the crown, it further urges us to run that we may be crowned. Matthew7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it” you can now see that there is a narrow gate and there is a broad/wide gate and the choice is yours. Matthew 8:19-22 the cost of following Jesus requires a sacrifice. You must be ready to let go everything – it is a sacrifice.

BENEFITS OF POSITIVE SACRICE:
a)    Restoration: Restoration means to bring back to the thing you’ve lost……….