SACRIFICE by Mrs. M. J. Bahler

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 27.

SACRIFICE.

By Mrs. M. J. Bahler

THE subject of sacrifice is one of vast importance. Without sacrifice our very existence would prove to be only a vapor, a fleeting shadow, a something to pass away and never come again. He who does not sacrifice something from his own comfort in life, thereby to help or comfort others, is living for self and has not the spirit of Christ dwelling in him. And if we have not the spirit of Christ, we are none of his.

At the very outset of man's existence he stretched forth his hand to a forbidden object, and that act made a sacrifice necessary in order to rescue him from the sad consequences of his disobedience. What thoughts of amazing love are brought to our minds as this scene in the drama of earth's sad history opens up to our view. Consider it for a moment—man lost, condemned, and wretched beyond measure with a sense of his guilt. A loving, pitying Saviour extending hope to the offender, and that hope to be realized only through a most cruel death to this Saviour and the sacrifice on his part of years of the bliss and glory of his home of ineffable peace and light.

Think for one moment of what a sacrifice this was—and yet it is utterly impossible for us to conceive to any adequate extent whatever the immeasurably sad contrast between his home and ours. His was light, glory, and peace; ours, darkness, sin, sorrow, and death.

As I try to contemplate the subject of this great sacrifice, the first ever made—for it was made in purpose before any other, in that the Son of God offered, and the pitying Father accepted—I feel like laying aside my pen from inability to properly express the thoughts which crowd my mind. This is the one great sacrifice without which all others were of no avail. Oh, may the spirit that actuated Jesus, the blessed Messiah, so permeate our hearts that we shall be willing to sacrifice our ease, our pleasure, our convenience, in order to be of some use to our fellow-beings!

Those who will be gathered to Christ at last to live in harmony, love, and light, through the ceaseless ages of eternity, will be those who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice—not by sacrificing the innocent animals, but by sacrificing the things of this life which hold them back from, or interfere with, their obedience to, and consequent relationship with, Christ. Oh, may we learn how to render acceptable service to him who has so loved us! And while we remember that "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit," and that "a broken and contrite heart" he will not despise, may we also remember that the heart truly contrite and broken with a sense of its weakness and sin, and consequent obligation to him who rideth upon the heavens in our help, who hath pitied our weakness and stretched out a hand to our help,—may we remember, I say, that the heart truly contrite and grateful must continually be sacrificing something it loves and delights in, thereby to give expression to its grateful love.

If we find that we do not love to deny ourselves the gratification of some pleasure, that we may be able to cheer, encourage, and help some of Christ's little ones, or search out and bring to him some wandering, desolate one, then may we know that we must seek and find more of that tender, self-sacrificing love which always abides in those who are Christ-like.

MRS. M. J. BAHLER.