Grace & Meat

One day, I was sitting with a friend, sharing with them about how much it bothered me to waste food, but especially meat. He agreed, and when I asked why, I was surprised to find out that he had the same thought; life had been taken so that we could enjoy this meat and therefore it should not be wasted. He went on to tell me that he used every part he could of the deer that he would kill when hunting. It left an impression; particularly because it sounded like he went above and beyond.

After I left, I got to thinking that this is the same mentality we ought to have with Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross as the sacrificial lamb of God.  We should hold the weight of Jesus’s life & death and not waste it.

When our sin causes pain to and offends God, just like it is with our friends that we cause pain to, we are separated from Him until we are reconciled. The reconciliation for the offense is repentance – when we experience Godly sorrow over what we have done, and we turn from those ways and change. The next part of reconciliation is fulfilling payment, or justice for that offense. Romans 6:23 states that the wages of sin is death. Then, once we have reconciled, we receive forgiveness, and just as when we reconcile with a person here on Earth, we can walk in relationship rightly again.

In the Old Testament, in once the Jewish repented, their sins were reconciled through animal sacrifices – sacrifices that because they repented, were accepted in place of their own death, as a temporary covering as payment for sins. As an outward sign of their repentance; these sacrifices were only the best from the herds and flocks – it was an expensive cost.  When Jesus came, He became the sacrifice, as the lamb of God to accomplish holy justice to bring us back into right standing with God.  

Think of the weight of this justice – the number of animals must have died in the Old Testament for sin? How many more should have, if Jesus hadn’t become a sacrifice? If, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) then we all deserve death. The only way we don’t, is if we repent and provide the wages of sin – a sacrifice – but there would be so many! So much life lost to regain right standing with God again – a price and relationship that is worth it, but at the cost of loss of a life. When we offend our maker, nothing less makes sense but isn’t there such weight with that cost?! Life!

The sacrifice of Jesus as the perfect lamb absorbed the offence of what millions of sacrifices should have been. What is that then saying about what Jesus was worth to God to have been able to cover such a multitude of sins? What magnitude of pain he must have had, what separation from God he must have experienced, to take the offense, pain and consequence of what an incredible summation of sins that were to come should have been? God decided – Jesus’s life was worth millions of lives; He was His son.

This is the grace He has given us – that He provided an offering in our place that is good forever and offered it to us freely, as a gift. This is His grace! Wouldn’t the worst thing we could do then, is to devalue this sacrifice?  Isn’t this what we do when we kill animals to eat them, and let them go to waste? We don’t place the proper value or respect on what was lost. We trash what was given to us, because we didn’t have to pay for it – it was no cost to us.  I believe this is what we do when we attempt to abuse God’s grace, and we ignore the high cost and weight of sin, and we willingly keep sinning.

Abuse is described as intentionally causing injury or pain to someone over and over – isn’t that what we do when we continue to sin, effectively, spitting on the sacrifice? We expect God (and Jesus) to just take it, over and over, without any regard for the cost of life even if we know what the impact is. The last part of Jude 1:4 describes this scenario: “They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”

Why does that passage describe people who use grace as a license to sin as those that deny Jesus, our ONLY, sovereign Lord? I think that it is because abusing grace means we don’t hold high value to Jesus’s life. Can we really say that we are believing and declaring Him as LORD, if our actions don’t match our words that not we, but Jesus is Lord of our lives?  Do we care about what was done for us, or are we indifferent? Do we just expect this grace from our great God or are we thankful for it?

Romans 10:9 says, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Unfortunately, when we hear over and over that Jesus died for our sins, and we don’t care about the pain or cost, I don’t think we can say that we have regard for Jesus. I have personally realized that I must fight to care some days. It’s best described as a fight for faith, a fight for the desire for a right relationship and a fight to believe. This is why I can say for sure that before I was born again and saved by the grace of God that I didn’t care what I did, or that what I was doing was sinful – sin didn’t feel bad- it felt good, and I didn’t “know” God, or value Jesus, so why stop?

After reflecting on this topic, I believe that when I indifferent over my own sin, I think that what I ought to do is ask God to increase my belief in Him, to help me with my unbelief – and to show me HIS glory, or rather, HIS power and weight in who He is and who He is to me – LORD!  It is only when I can experience the weight of who Jesus is, and how He matters in my life, that I can appreciate the sacrifice of Jesus with a thankful heart instead of a hardened heart. I often say and have experienced that pain can make us selfish – it can harden our hearts and makes us blind to the bigger picture of more than just our own world. I pray that even amongst painful moments, even moments where I ask, “Why God? What could possibly be your plan for good in this?” that I, and all of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, would still come to God with a thankful heart – looking at what He has already done so that we may be confident that what’s to come is as good as what he has already accomplished in this: our salvation!

Whether it is deer meat or the lamb of God, it is clear to me, that it is only when we hold appreciation and see value in the cost of what has been lost for us to gain, that we can be sure that we are thankful, changed forever, and sure that what was given up for us has not gone to waste.  

May we value this: the cost of life taken, so that we may live.