Living Sacrifices

We have all heard the Christmas story or seen the children's plays with the wise men, manger and barn animals. Even the characters of Charlie Brown did a sweet warm and fuzzy Christmas play. I'm sure you have seen at least one or have been hearing the Christmas story read from Luke at your church.
True story:
In 1984 I was living in Stuarts Draft Virginia. Don't ask.... It was a small town with country folk and a local Baptist church which the kids and I attended occasionally. Anthony and Amanda were 3 and 4 at the time and were asked to be a part of the live Nativity scene. The church also had a small singing Christmas tree made up of the even smaller choir. When I went to drop off my little shepherds a woman grabbed me and said something like thank God your here Mary Beth got the flu and we have an empty spot on the singing Christmas tree! Before I knew it she was slapping a red hat on my head and someone else was applying blush to my face to give my cheeks some color. I probably had no color because I was horrified! I tried to explain that not only do I not sing but I didn't know any of the songs to which they replied just move your lips and smile. There I was on the 2nd row of the singing Christmas tree with the towns people and local TV crew! Oh it get's better, just before the music starts Anthony yells “mommy the cows are REAL!” Spoken like a true New Yorker.
OK, back to the jewel. I want to talk about Mary and the decision she made to be obedient to what God called her to do. Her decision to literally make her body a living sacrifice.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
When Mary agreed to being a pregnant virgin I'm sure the people back then believed her story about as much as people would today. Not even Joseph, her fiancee believed her angel story.
Joseph's plan was to send her away. In all fairness to Joseph if my brother came to me and told me his fiancee was pregnant with someone else baby I may very well tell him to end the relationship too. What say you?
Matthew 1:19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
Great way to start your marriage. We know an Angel comes to Joseph later and explains things so Joseph believes Mary but the Angel didn't appear to everyone. I'm sure Mary's friends and dare I say family might have thought Joseph was just covering for Mary. But Mary had decided that day before the angel Gabriel to make her body a living sacrifice to God.
I'm sure she put up with a lot of trash talk and self righteous people looking down on her. I'm sure she felt the glaring eyes and heard conversations suddenly stop when she got close enough to hear. Or put up with the hurtful words of those who wanted her to hear their condemning comments.
Gems I'm sure Mary didn't have the sweet Christmas play experience we sing carols to.
We see in the scriptures it didn't end. Jesus was in his 30's when He began His ministry and the snide remarks about his birth were still being made. We see it in the book of John when Jesus was having a discussion with some of the Jews.
John 8:41 "You are doing the works of your own father.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
The New King James version says: You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”
I'm sure these comments still hurt Mary, after all they were talking about her son. Nothing about Mary's decision to offer her body as a living sacrifice was easy. Not Jesus life and most of all not his death.
I know this may be an odd jewel for Christmas but with all the emphasis on giving gifts I thought maybe we, me included, could really think about the verse in Romans and ask ourselves how much are we willing to offer? How far out of our comfort zone are we willing to go? How much of ourselves are we willing to give back to God and at what cost? Maybe we could really stretch ourselves as a gift back to our sweet Savior who died to give us the ultimate gift of eternal life. What is God asking you to give Him?
(Message Bible) Romans 12:1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Gems let's go beyond reading just the birth of our Lord at the manger scene, let's encounter the power of the living word of God and transform our lives into living sacrifices and truly worship the King of Kings!