Mark 12:17 – “Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s” is what Jesus said to those who were seeking to ruin Him by asking if they should pay taxes or not.
The Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by asking Him if they had to pay taxes to Caesar. If He said no, He would have the government against Him. If He said yes, He would have the people against Him. Jesus, knowing all things took this time to teach all who would listen a valuable lesson of how we are to live our lives for God. He asked for a coin and asked whose image was on it. Naturally it was Caesar’s. Therefore, He said, give to Caesar what belongs to him and give God what belongs to Him. If we take the same answer that Jesus spoke and apply it to our lives we will find that we have short changed God. Whose image is on us? According to Genesis 1:26-27 we have been made in the image of God. He said, “Come let us make man in our own image.” The coins, back in the days when Jesus walked the face of the earth, were made with the image of Caesar stamped on them. Our physical bodies have been stamped with the image of God, but have our souls been stamped with Jesus? If we are to give what belongs to God to Him, then we are to give ourselves to God because we are stamped with His image all over us. But, how do we do that?
Some would say give your heart to Jesus and that is it, but I say it is much more than a simple prayer of giving your heart to Jesus. Giving yourself to God is a lifelong choice that is made constantly every day. Billy Graham said that salvation is free, but discipleship cost everything. When Jesus called the disciples He said, “Come follow Me.” He calls us to do the same thing. “Follow Him!”
Paul says that we are to be a living sacrifice.[i] Now this concept seems foreign to us because a sacrifice, in all the examples we generally think of, is dead. We do not physically die, but we do die to our own wants, desires, wills and live for God’s will alone. Dad says “dead men don’t got no rights,” meaning If we have died to ourselves then we do not need to get uppity when someone wrongs us and we do not need to be fighting for our rights like the world does. We have none, all of us belongs to God. It is getting into this mindset that will help us to follow Christ and to give Him all of us.
Being a living sacrifice and giving God what is God’s is a constant choice of submission to God’s will. Now does this mean you must always be a carpet. No! God has called us to be children of His not robots or carpets, and that is why it is a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice is a lifestyle of choosing God and putting His will above ours in everyday decisions. Each moment we get the choice of whether we will obey Christ and His desires for our lives. The choices are continual. The point is to sacrifice our plans for His, that is what makes it a sacrifice. His plans are always best for us. Our choice is one of constant surrender to the will of God, even when we feel that it would be easier to ditch the whole thing. Just because it is hard does not mean it is wrong.
We have Jesus Christ’s image stamped on our physical bodies, but do we have His image stamped on our souls? By being a living sacrifice, His image will reside in our inmost being. John the Baptist said when Jesus came that he had to decrease so that Christ could increase.[ii] Very similarly, we must decrease our desires, hopes, dreams, plans, and selves, so that He can increase in us.
If we are afraid that we will vanish away because Christ has consumed us, we should not be. God delights in how he has made us. As we submit ourselves to Him, He will chip away the things that hinder us, but not the things that He loves about us. Not the aspects that he personally designed for us that make up who we are. The devil wants to keep us afraid of becoming a living sacrifice because of the pain that will come in denying ourselves. But he fails to mention the pain and emptiness that comes when we indulge ourselves to the max, as the devil suggests. We do not need to be afraid of what God has called us to do. Christ will be there the whole way, He never leaves us nor forsakes us.[iii] We need to begin implementing the characteristics of Christ, so that we can be like Him, so that we can give Him that which is in His image. He says to be holy as He is holy.[iv] Being in the image of Christ on the inside and outside is what we should be striving for.
What is one step that you can take today toward being a living sacrifice, toward holiness?
[i] Romans 12:1 NKJV
[ii] John 3:30 NKJV
[iii] Hebrews 13:5 NKJV
[iv] 1 Peter 1:15-16 NKJV