Constantly Offering Ourselves to the Lord as a Living Sacrifice for God’s Satisfaction

Today in our Christian life and church life we should live a life of the continual burnt offering, which means that we need to be a living sacrifice, living a life of consecrating ourselves to the Lord.

The fire on the altar of burnt offering had to be kept burning, and it must not go out. This means that all night until the Lord returns, all through the dark night of this age, we should live a life of the continual burnt offering, being a living sacrifice for the satisfaction of God.

Our offering ourselves to the Lord shouldn’t be conditional, if we feel like it or if we are happy about it; rather, we should allow the Lord to keep us burning as a living sacrifice all throughout the dark age of this world, until He returns.

On His side, God is a holy fire ready to consume whatever we offer to Him, and He is hungry to feed on the food of the burnt offerings. On our side, we simply offer ourselves early in the morning by consecrating ourselves to Him, and we also take Christ as our burnt offering in the evening, when all the work is done, for God to be satisfied.

We consecrate ourselves to the Lord not by promising Him to do this or that for Him, but by offering ourselves to Him with the realisation that we take Christ as our burnt offering, for He alone is qualified to be for God’s satisfaction, only He is absolute for God, and only He is our acceptance before God.

The type of the burnt offering shows us that we need to live a life of the continual burnt offering, a life with fire burning on the altar all day long, a life of being a living sacrifice. The amount of fire we have from God and burning in us depends on the amount of our experience of consecration.

The more we consecrate ourselves to the Lord by offering ourselves to Him for Him to do what He wants to do in us, the more the divine fire will burn in us. In a sense, we don’t need to ask God to send us fire – we simply need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord, add wood to the fire, and the Lord as the fire will burn in us.

For example, we may not feel like going to the home meeting with the saints, but instead of waiting for the holy fire to fall from heaven and motivate us to go to the meeting, we simply exercise our spirit and, though we may not feel like it, we go to the home of the saints to meet with them.

The result is that the Lord will eat our offering by fire, He will be satisfied, and we also will be satisfied, for when God is happy we are also happy. When we live a life of the burnt offering by being a living sacrifice, we are for God’s satisfaction, we live a life for God’s purpose, and both Him and us are satisfied.

Consecration is Offering Ourselves to God as a Living Sacrifice for His Satisfaction

For us as New Testament believers to live a life of the continual burnt offering is to be a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1); this is how to experience the continual burnt offering according to the New Testament teaching.

The burnt offering is a type of our consecration, of our offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. The meaning of consecration is not making a promise or a vow before God to do something for Him, but to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice (see Lev. 1:3-4, 8-9; 6:9, 12a, 13; Rom. 12:1).

Being a sacrifice means that we are willing to become nothing – we just let everything go, and we are willing to lose everything. Paul exhorts us in Rom. 12:1, through the compassions of God, to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.

When we put something on the altar as a sacrifice, our right is over – we have no more control, whatever we put on the altar has to be burned up. To be a sacrifice is to allow God to have the full control and right. This is the meaning of consecration: it is to be a living sacrifice by offering ourselves to the Lord.

Consecration is not merely our devotion or vowing to God that we will read the Bible every day or bring one person to salvation every year; consecration is to surrender ourselves to God.

In Lev. 8 when Aaron and his sons were consecrated, their hands were filled with the offering; the offering has to be placed in their hands. To consecrate is to fill our hands with Christ – not with our determination to do this or that, but having our hands filled with Christ as our burnt offering.

Many think that to consecrate is to commit and devote to do something for God; but to consecrate to the Lord is really to commit to let God do whatever He wants in us and with us, to be a living sacrifice.

When we say that we want to experience Christ as the burnt offerings we don’t mean that we want to burn for God and do many things for Him, but that we offer ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice to allow Him to do whatever He pleases.

The daily burnt offering in the Old Testament typifies that we in the New Testament who belong to God should offer ourselves daily to God (Num. 28:3-8). We need to daily offer ourselves to God, renewing our consecration to Him in the morning and in the evening, determining not to do anything but turning our life over to Him.

It is good to tell the Lord early in the morning and late in the evening,

Lord, thank You for this day: I offer myself to You, and I take You as my burnt offering. I am just an unprofitable slave – I do all I can, but I take You as my burnt offering, for You are the One who is absolute for God and wholly for His satisfaction.

When God sees our consecration, He appreciates our being a living sacrifice, and He is satisfied.

Once we were a pile of uncooked rice, which might be used for this or for that; one day, because we saw God’s need and were drawn by Him, we were separated from the original pile and were worked on by God in such a way that we became cooked and placed on God’s table (the altar) and became God’s food for His satisfaction.

This is the meaning of being a sacrifice, the meaning of consecration – offering ourselves to the Lord for God’s satisfaction.

Lord Jesus, we consecrate ourselves to You afresh. We offer ourselves to You as a living sacrifice to be for Your satisfaction. Lord, in ourselves we have nothing to offer You, and we cannot do anything of ourselves to please You. We lay our hands on Christ, the reality of the burnt offering, and we want to be identified with Him. Lord, we just offer ourselves to You to be a living sacrifice for Your satisfaction. We want You to be satisfied and made happy. We fill our hands with Christ as the burnt offering, and we offer You Christ for Your satisfaction!

Constantly Offering Ourselves to the Lord as a Living Sacrifice for God’s Satisfaction

Once a sacrifice is placed on the altar, it is killed, and it is consumed by fire to be for God’s satisfaction; in Rom. 12:1, however, we see that we need to be a living sacrifice.

God doesn’t want us to be “killed” and terminated in the sense of cutting us off completely; He wants us to present our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice constantly.

In the Old Testament the people offered dead sacrifices, whereas we offer living sacrifices; our sacrifice is living because after termination there’s germination in resurrection.

We need to be terminated, put to death; when we are crucified with Christ, He can come in and live in us and with us, and we will still live – but the life we now live is in faith, in oneness with Christ, in resurrection (Gal. 2:20). We have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer us who live, but Christ who lives in us; yet the life which we now live in the flesh we live as a living sacrifice!

To be a living sacrifice means that we constantly offer ourselves to the Lord. Because we still live in resurrection, when we offer ourselves to the Lord continually, the Lord can use us continually.

This is to consecrate to the Lord; we consecrate to Him out of love (because He is our Master, He drew us with His love) and of right (He has the right over us, He bought us with a price, and we are not our own).

Because we love the Lord and because He is our Master, we consecrate ourselves to Him continually; we must always be standing in the position of consecration, offering ourselves to Him continually as a living sacrifice.

Such a sacrifice is holy because, positionally, it has been separated to God by the blood of Christ from the world and from all the persons, matters, and things that are common. Also, this sacrifice is holy because, dispositionally, the natural life and the old creation have been sanctified and transformed by the Holy Spirit with God’s life and God’s holy nature for God’s satisfaction.

Therefore, our living sacrifice is holy and well pleasing to God (Rom. 12:1). If we are those who continually consecrate ourselves to the Lord to be a living sacrifice, there’s a mark on us, for we bear a separation between what is of God and what is not of God in us.

Outwardly the world is advancing speedily, and it seems that the line between what is of the world and what is not of the world is blurred, not clear anymore. The world is demanding more and more from us, and worldliness comes into us and our situation in such a subtle way.

How can we have the fire continually burning in us? How can we consecrate continually and have the mark of separation in us?

We need to learn to experience Christ as the burnt offering, consecrating ourselves to God constantly and continually.

Only when we pass through the gate of consecration can we know and be God’s testimony today, and can we have a balance in our Christian life.

When we have Christ as the center, everything is balanced out. We need to offer up ourselves as a living sacrifice to the Lord continually, and the Lord will be able to use us continually.

Lord Jesus, we offer ourselves to You continually for Your sole satisfaction. We want to be separated from the world and its defilement, and be saturated with Your holy life and nature. We place everything we are and have on the altar, and we want to be a living sacrifice, a reproduction of Christ as the burnt offering. Oh Lord, it is our reasonable service to offer ourselves to You as a living sacrifice for Your satisfaction. We want to be well-pleasing to you by consecrating ourselves absolutely.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, The Experience of Life, pp. 36-38 (Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 3, The Continual Burnt Offering – a Living Sacrifice.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # As we eat Thyself, Lord Jesus, / Consecrated we become; / By Thy wondrous life within us, / Thy obedience is our own. / No more need we strive and struggle, / Consecrated try to be; / Consecration dwells within us— / Now our part to eat of Thee. (Hymns #1138)
  # You need the Nazarites to turn this age. / Move in me to turn my heart and consecrate. / Save me from all selfish seeking, search my heart. / Set me free, make every bondage break apart! (Song on, Consecrated One)
  # Raise up some to meet Your need, some Nazarites, / Voluntary consecrated ones, / Who through Your word are joined to Your desire; / Your living testimony on the earth. (Song on, In this godless age)