Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Prayer as Sacrifice
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Psalm 107:21-22
Thankfulness is offered as a spiritual sacrifice. It is given in combination with other spiritual sacrifices. As a spiritual sacrifice, thanksgiving can be offered in the form of a prayer and/or praise. Prayer, praise, and thanksgiving are almost inseparable, and they are most often offered together. Thankfulness is a peace offering (Leviticus 7:11-13). It produces peace (I Timothy 2:1-2).
Martin G. Collins
Thankfulness
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Psalm 141:2
David says that sacrifice is a prayer. It also works the other way around: Prayer is a sacrifice. Why? Because it is a gift of devotion, praise, and thanksgiving that aids in changing a person's nature from his self-centeredness. Why is prayer a sacrifice? First, it consumes time. We dislike giving time up unless our heart is consumed by what we want to do, and human nature does not want to do spiritual things. Second, prayer requires giving—the giving of one's mind over to thinking about the qualities of God. How else can we thank Him? We give ourselves to the activity of praise—praise for things that He has done. We do that because we have thought about them and because we acknowledge His presence, His activity, in our or somebody else's life. Prayer is most effective when we act as a mediator, interceding on behalf of others, meaning that we have given our time to thinking about them and their needs. We give our time to go to God and ask for His intervention so to help them change. God acts on our behalf because we sacrificed and begins to change us away from our egocentricity, our self-centeredness. God is training our minds to think about others rather than the self. In Psalm 40:6-8, the psalmist says that God did not want burnt offerings. Those who were converted under the Old Covenant understood this fact. Paul quotes this passage in the book of Hebrews. In fact, he quotes Jesus Christ as saying it before He ever came to the earth: "Sacrifice and offering You did not want, You did not desire; otherwise, I would have given it to You. But a body you have prepared for me" (Hebrews 10:5). One can easily make a ritual out of going to services, tithing, getting rid of the leaven, fasting on the Day of Atonement, or even going to the Feast of Tabernacles if our reasons for doing so are perfunctory, we do not understand, or we disagree with the object lesson that God intends we learn from doing them. When that lawyer asked Jesus in Matthew 22, which is the great commandment of the law, Jesus said, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and the second is like it." He quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. What Jesus described is the meaning of a whole burnt offering. The burnt offering of Leviticus 1:1-13 is the offering of an animal, but it pictures the offering of a life lived completely consumed in obedience to living God's way. Nothing will prepare us for the Kingdom of God to be both kings and priests like following, with all of our being, Leviticus 1:1-13 and what that burnt offering means. Jesus did. He lived as a whole burnt offering to God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Preparing to Be a Priest
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Matthew 5:23-24
To the best of my knowledge, this is the only place where "reconciled" is used in Scripture. It just means to have peace with one's brother. God wants us to have peace with one another. We should not attempt to bring our offerings before God when at odds with our brethren. We do not bring physical offerings today, like burnt offerings. However, we do bring Him prayers. Before we come to Him with our prayers, beseeching His good will, we should make amends with our offended brothers. Go to the estranged friend and settle the matter. The very essence of God is love. He epitomizes outgoing concern for others; this is what love is all about. Thus, we have to make changes in our lives to conform to God's standard so that our prayers will be fully accepted by Him. God expects us to reflect His love in everything we do. And He wants peace.
John O. Reid
Don't Take God for Granted
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Romans 12:1-2
Notice that the days of sacrifice are not over. We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. Sacrificing has been transferred from the physical slaughtering of animals to the sacrifice of the self, from the slaying of a dumb and uncomprehending beast to the intelligent and deliberate choice of an understanding human, made in the image of God. The principles of the sacrifices given in Leviticus 1-5 and so forth still apply to us under the New Covenant in their spirit—the stretching out of principles to their spiritual intent. It is these principles that Paul is drawing on for this command. We are to present our lives as a sacrifice to God. Remember, our salvation rests on the human sacrifice of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. First, He gave up His glory to become a man. Second, He sacrificed His life; for 33 ½ years, He laid it down as an offering to God, and as an example to us of perfect obedience. Finally, He gave up His human life as a sacrifice on the stake. Sacrifice is a New Testament doctrine! It is on such a higher plane that there is no comparison with the sacrificing done in the Old Testament. Now we have to be sacrificed and much in the same way, in principle, that Christ was. Many individual verses or paragraphs in the Bible explain that such things as prayer, thanksgiving, faith, and repentance are Christian sacrifices.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Nineteen)
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