Let us now explore what it means to offer ourselves as a sacrifice and how we can do it.
First, two general comments.
(1) In one sense we have nothing to offer. Everything belongs to God. We have nothing to give. We have nothing that we can call our own. This is the ultimate spiritual reality.
But in another sense we do have something to offer. In worldly, material terms we have certain exclusive rights to various things. We can exclude any other humans from them. We also have something we call ourself, which we will not allow others to invade. Apart from God, this self (shabby as it may be) is our most precious possession. So we do have to be willing to give up something that we have considered of great importance.
(2) There is another sense in which what we offer is not a sacrifice, because what God gives us in return is far greater than what we have given up. Jesus used two images, of a man who found a great treasure buried in a field, and of another man who found a pearl of great price, the most wonderful jewel imaginable (Matthew 13:44-46). In each case he sold everything he had to acquire the treasure. Jesus said the first man did this "in his joy", and I think we can assume the second man did so also. We, too, can find joy in the sacrifice that Romans 12:1 calls on us to make. In some cases, however, it may seem like a sacrifice at the time and the joy does not come until later. At any rate I shall, as Paul did, refer to it as a sacrifice.
In what follows I shall list some ways in which we can commit ourselves wholly to God, and in which some Christians have committed themselves wholly to God. I am not saying that all of us need to do all of these things. We need to be ready to do whatever God calls on us to do in our particular situation, and he puts different calls on different people. I am also not saying that I have achieved all, or even many, of these. But I think it is useful to study Scripture for the purpose of setting the goals towards which we can aim.
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