Obedience versus Sacrifice

Jesus said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” 

Matthew 9:13

Jesus heard the Pharisees ask the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus’ response always causes me to stop and meditate on His answer. In this instance, He speaks of the sinner as sick and needing a physician. Jesus said, “Those who do not need a physician, but those who are sick. But learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Obedience versus Sacrifice

In exploring God’s position on sacrifice for the new covenant saint, I was led to examine the Book of Leviticus. In the first few chapters, I saw how the priest handled the offering and how it had to be without blemish, and immediately I saw Jesus! And those things were a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ (Colossians 2:17). The sons of Aaron, the priest lays the sacrifice on the altar. But Christ came as High Priest of good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His blood, He entered the Most Holy Place once and for all, obtaining eternal redemption for us (Hebrews 9:11-12). 

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

Proverbs 21:3

Living Sacrifices by God’s Mercy!

As I meditated on the idea that God doesn’t want my sacrifices, the Holy Spirit brought to my remembrance; that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Reading Romans 12:1 out loud, I heard and realized before submitting your body as a living sacrifice it is by God’s mercy! Apostle Paul essentially begged his brethren and declared, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice. It’s not of our strength that we give our bodies, but by God’s mercy. Please see Romans 12:1.

My Grace is Sufficient for Thee

2 Corinthians 12:9

We do nothing of our strength but by God’s mercy and Grace! His power is made perfect in our weaknesses. That thought brought me to Jesus as our living sacrifice, and I am in Him. Why would I need to be of a sacrifice consciousness? He is my sufficiency, and I am complete in Him (Colossian 2:10).

Father God said, Hear Jesus!

 God parted the heavens and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him, Matthew 17:5. Is this to say hearing God, the Son of God, is sacrificial? I don’t think so, a sacrifice to listen to the One who sent His only begotten Son, that I don’t perish, John 3:16! But I would guess if I were of a mindset of doing my own thing, to obey anyone is viewed as a sacrifice, regardless of the relationship.   

The Lord once told the Prophet Samuel to say to King Saul, “To obey is better than sacrifice.”

1 Samuel 15:22

What Jesus paid for, I no longer need to bear a consciousness of debt; He is my righteousness, He is redemption, He is the Grace of Father God, and Grace said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Jesus said He and the Father are One (John 10:30). Jesus said, “I tell you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19). To look at Jesus is to see Father God in action.       

One Sacrifice for Sin Forever

Hebrews 10:12

God did away with the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all; he offered a single sacrifice for sins, and He sat down at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 10:9-12). Jesus’ sacrifice sanctifies me. I am a new creation in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17). My obedience is a fruit of His gift of righteousness. Because we are in Christ Jesus, He is all the sacrifice Father God needs to see when He looks at us. 

Beloved,

Jesus is the only sacrifice Father God sees, and you are in Him. His eyes are eternally on His Son and forever on you (Hebrews 10:12).

Receive God’s best as Lord and reign in life through the One Jesus Christ!