Be a Good Sacrifice

The animal to be sacrificed was to be an unblemished animal. This means that the animal was not to have any deformity on the outside. The animal was also to be unblemished on the inside. The priest would cut the animal completely in half. He would inspect it to make sure that it was the kind of animal that God would accept. Such an animal was considered clean in the eyes of God.

Now we know that many of the sacrifices were done as a representation of when Christ would give his life as a sacrifice for our sins. Christ lived a perfect life and was completely unblemished in his spiritual life.

The Greeks had words to describe animal sacrifices because they also sacrificed animals. But they were not offering their sacrifices to the true God. One of the words they used is used in Hebrews 4:13. “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”

The word “opened” was used to refer to the act of slicing the animal’s throat when the animal was first being sacrificed. And then the animal would be cut completely in half so that the animal could be inspected.

When we come to worship God, we must make sure that we are clean on the inside. God will not accept our worship if we are not. Just like the animal that was not perfect would be thrown away and not given as a sacrifice, so God will not accept our worship if we are not spiritually perfect. Of course, we know that Christ’s blood can make us spiritually perfect in God’s eyes. So we must make sure that we are in touch with Christ’s blood so that it can cleanse us and make us perfect.

The only way to know how to have Christ’s blood make us perfect is to study God’s Word, the Bible. In the Bible God tells us what we must do to contact Christ’s blood. Make sure you can present yourself as a good living sacrifice when you come to worship God (and remember that not every thing you do is worship).

You could say that the character held firm to the branch. His grip was sure and steadfast because he did not want to fall. He was not going to let go of that branch no matter what happened.

We are to be that way with God. We are not to let go of our hope of living with God in heaven forever. The word in the Greek which could mean “not losing your grip” is used in Hebrews 6:18-19. There we read, “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.”

The word for “not lose your grip” is the word “stedfast.” We must never let go of our hope for heaven. We must keep a tight grip on it. And the only way to do that is to always study our Bible and obey what it says. We must always obey God and do what He wants us to do. That is the only way to keep our grip on our hope. If we obey Him, He is faithful to take us to heaven one day. If we do not obey Him, we will lose our grip on our hope and fall.

Until next time, keep studying your Bible. Make sure that you keep a tight grip on your hope. And if any of this is hard to understand, ask an adult to help you.