Guest Post by Teri Snode: “A Living Sacrifice”

My wife, Teri, wrote the following for her devotions recently, and I wanted to share with you her perspective on sacrificing for the Lord.  I am so thankful for my wife and her submission to God’s will for her life.

Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

I love that phrase “living sacrifice.” I always thought a sacrifice had to be dead, but not so with us. We are to sacrifice our lives for Jesus while we are alive. Missionaries and Christians around the world do this every day.

I used to say that living on the foreign field is not a sacrifice. I didn’t want to make it sound too hard, because I didn’t want to put anyone off from surrendering their life to be a missionary. But I read an interesting article recently written by a missionary wife. She said that we should stop saying that living on the foreign field is not a sacrifice. Saying this degrades the value of the gospel. If it takes no sacrifice from me, then it must not be worth much. If it takes no sacrifice from me, then I don’t need God’s help to do it. If it takes no sacrifice from me, then I must be way more super spiritual than other Christians because I have some special power to handle difficult things. NO! That’s all wrong!

The gospel and the name of Jesus is WORTH sacrificing everything I have and everything I am to get it to people that have never heard. And yes it’s hard, but we are not alone! God is helping us. God is with us. We cannot do it without Him. I’m not more special than any other Christian lady. Sometimes living on a foreign field is TOUGH! And there is nothing I can do to get myself through it, but just depend on God. And God is good all the time!