Sacrifice Bible Quotes & Sayings

For my days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
I forget to eat my food.
In my distress, I groan aloud
and am reduced to skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl,
like an owl among the ruins.
~Psalm 102 NIV Bible — Jessica Fortunato

The holiness described in the Bible calls us to do more than separate ourselves from the moral pollution of the world around us. It calls us to obey God even when that obedience is costly, when it requires deliberate sacrifice and even exposure to danger. — Jerry Bridges

God's grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver ... From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can "just forgive" the perpetrator ... But when you forgive, that means you absorb the loss and the debt. You bear it yourself. All forgiveness, then, is costly. — Timothy Keller

The fatal effects of sin can be removed only by the provision that God has made. The Israelites saved their lives by looking upon the uplifted serpent. That look implied faith. They lived because they believed God's word, and trusted in the means provided for their recover. So to sinner may look to Christ, and live. He receives pardon through faith in the atoning sacrifice. Unlike the inert and lifeless symbol, Christ has power and virtue in Himself to heal the repenting sinner. — Ellen G. White

Consider the wave of revulsion that floods the average person when he or she hears of the practice of human sacrifice by the Aztecs and other so-called primitive peoples. How savage and barbaric such practices seem. But when a Christian or Jew comes across human sacrifice in the Bible (see Jephthah's immolation of his daughter in Judges 11:30-40), is he or she repulsed? — Steve Allen

And self-sacrifice is what the Bible means by 'love.' While sin is possessive, love is expansive. Sin's characteristic is the desire to get; love's characteristic is the desire to give. — John R.W. Stott

Open up your eyes for me people, the prophecies are true and the beast is real. — Jonathan Anthony Burkett

The bible teaches that a father may sell his daughter for a slave, that he may sacrifice her purity to a mob, and that he may murder her, and still be a good father and a holy man. It teaches that a man may have any number of wives; that he may sell them, give them away, or swap them around, and still be a perfect gentleman, a good husband, a righteous man, and one of God's most intimate friends; and that is a pretty good position for a beginning. — Helen H. Gardener

The Bible says that when we obey God's commands, we benefit. I think we naturally assume that if we look out for our own interests and concerns, we will be happy. But people who sacrifice for others will tell you that seasons of giving are the most rewarding of their lives. — Francis Chan

The Bible is very resonant. It has everything: creation, betrayal, lust, poetry, prophecy, sacrifice. All great things are in the Bible, and all great writers have drawn from it and more than people realise, whether Shakespeare, Herman Melville or Bob Dylan. — Patti Smith

Non-churchgoer s tend to see Christians as takers rather than givers. When Christians sacrifice and give wildly to the poor, that is truly a light that glimmers. The Bible teaches that the church is to be that light, that sign of hope, in an increasingly dark and hopeless world. — Francis Chan

Such a man is altogether beyond our reach. He succeeded where we always fail. He had complete self-mastery. He never retaliated. He never grew resentful or irritable. He had such control of himself that, whatever others might think or say or do, he would deny himself and abandon himself to the will of God and the welfare of his fellow human beings. 'I seek not to please myself,' he said, and 'I am not seeking glory for myself.' As Paul wrote, 'For Christ did not please himself.' This utter disregard of self in the service of God and man is what the Bible calls love. There is no self-interest in love. The essence of love is self-sacrifice. Even the worst of us is adorned by an occasional flash of such nobility, but the life of Jesus radiated it with a never-fading incandescent glow. Jesus was sinless because he was selfless. Such selflessness is love. And God is love. — John R.W. Stott

Isaac basically knew just one thing for sure: Many are born, few flourish, all die. If you didn't die as a sacrifice for God today, you would die of an incomprehensible plague tomorrow, or of undeserved starvation the day after, or of good old-fashioned senseless human slaughter before the next harvest. Life was short in those days and people were grateful for whatever they could get. They didn't expect wireless video game consoles, fast German cars, dental insurance, anti-depressants, and a pension. — Chris F. Westbury

The entire Jesus concept, that human sacrifice should be the substratum of a moral religion of love, strikes me as incongruous. God condemned us and Jesus saved us, and they are actually the same being? Christianity is the idea that you are so abhorrent that God had to kill himself. He had to embody the human form and send himself on a bizarre suicide mission just to revoke the disgustingness of the humans he created. I balk at suggestions that these ideas dictate to the concepts of morality and love. — Trevor Treharne

We can always be sure of one thing - that the messengers of discomfort and sacrifice will be stoned and pelted by those who wish to preserve at all costs their own contentment. This is not a lesson that is confined to the Testaments. — Christopher Hitchens

But as I became more aware of same-sex relationships, I couldn't understand why they were supposed to be sinful, or why the Bible apparently condemned them. With most sins, it wasn't hard to pinpoint the damage they cause. Adultery violates a commitment to your spouse. Lust objectifies others. Gossip degrades people. But committed same-sex relationships didn't fit this pattern. Not only were they not harmful to anyone, they were characterized by positive motives and traits instead, like faithfulness, commitment, mutual love, and self-sacrifice. — Matthew Vines

First, in Genesis 4, we have the Lamb typified in the firstlings of the flock slain by Abel in sacrifice. Second, we have the Lamb prophesied in Genesis 22:8 where Abraham said to Isaac, "God will provide himself a lamb." Third, in Exodus 12, we have the Lamb slain and its blood applied. Fourth, in Isaiah 53:7, we have the Lamb personified: here for the first time we learn that the Lamb would be a Man. Fifth, in John 1:29, we have the Lamb identified, learning who He was. Sixth, in Revelation 5, we have the Lamb magnified by the hosts of heaven. Seventh, in the last chapter of the Bible we have the Lamb glorified, seated upon the eternal throne of God, Revelation — Arthur W. Pink

When we look carefully at ourselves in the mirror of God's Word and see flaws, even evidences of selfishness, we might become discouraged. If that ever happens to you, reflect on the successful man in James' illustration. James did not stress how quickly the man fixed the problems he detected or even that he was able to correct every blemish; rather, James says that the man 'continued in the perfect law. (Jas. 1:25) He remembered what he saw in the mirror and kept working to improve. Yes, keep a positive view of yourself and a balanced view of your imperfections. (Ecclesiastes 7:20.) Continue to peer into the perfect law, and work to maintain your spirit of self-sacrifice. Jehovah is willing to help you, as he has helped so many of your brothers who, although imperfect, can and do have God's favor and blessing — Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society

I cannot tell you that the sacrifice will be light: it is a serious thing to stand against the whole current of an age; it is a serious thing to be despised and hated by the generality of one's fellow men. Yet that is increasingly the lot of the truth Christian today. He will not, indeed, be inclined to complain; for he has something with which all that he has lost is not worthy to be compared; and he knows that despite temporary opposition the ultimate future belongs to him and to His Lord. But for the present he is called upon to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It can hardly be said that unworthy motives of self-interest can lead a man to enter into a calling in which he will win nothing but reproach. — J. Gresham Machen

Christ is our all. He is everything to the Christian. He fills all, is in all, and He is our life (Colossians 3:4, 11). It is in Him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden (Colossians 2:3). He is the author and finisher of our salvation, the one who starts it, works it out, and completes it (Hebrews 12:2). This is as the Father wanted it. He places His people in the hands of the Son, having joined them to the Son in a super-natural union, so the Son, by His perfect life of obedience, and perfect act of self-sacrifice upon the cross, can bring about their full and complete salvation. — James R. White

This is a real presence which includes every dimension of who Jesus is: body and blood, human soul and divine person. The consecrated Eucharistic species are the Lord and therefore command our adoration. We do not adore ourselves, nor the ordained priest, nor the Bible, even though these are vehicles for Christ's spiritual presence; we do adore the Eucharist, this blessed sacrifice made really present sacramentally. — Francis George

If you hold on to what you want so tightly, it almost becomes an idol. — Joel Osteen

If I don't have anything to sacrifice, I don't have anything to gain. From the Bible I have learned if you want something good, you must sacrifice. — Catherine Ndereba

In that moment, I understand the way that the noblest yearning for duty and sacrifice can be mixed up with all that is savage and shameful, like in the Bible, where a just and merciful God tells you to kill everyone, kill the children, kill the livestock, kill John Polling, leave nothing alive to sully this pure and just world. Except when it's all done you find out that wasn't really God after all, just some politician, or maybe it was God, but he taps you on the shoulder and says, 'No, dude, that isn't what I meant,' and leaves you sitting in a Dairy Queen in Bothell with blood on your hands and no further orders ... — Stuart Archer Cohen

I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity. In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear my so-called, violent point of view, but we can also examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me. — Marilyn Manson

True biblical love is sacrificing, purifying, nurturing, and enduring. — Elizabeth George

Seeking - really seeking - is more than just reading a few verses from the Bible in the morning and trying to be a good person that day. Seeking requires me to sacrifice the things I feel compelled to chase so I can be available to notice God's clear direction. Whatever we chase, like it or not, gains our full attention. Dear Lord, forgive me for all the times I've rushed by Your gifts and overlooked Your blessings. Today, I want to pause and really seek You with all I've got. I love You, Lord. In Jesus' Name, Amen. — Lysa TerKeurst

Once in the end of the world hath he [Jesus] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. — Hebrews 9 26

Lets us not just read the Bible; let us learn it; let us experience it; let us live it distinctively, in truth and in spirit, as a pleasant sacrifice unto the Most High God — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The Bible says no one has ever looked upon God and lived. God is perfectly good, and can't be in the presence of evil, even the smallest evil. Without his Son's sacrifice as a covering, we can't be in the presence of God without being destroyed, because his anger would be kindled against us. — John Michael Hileman

I randomly opened a Bible to the passages in Revelation about being lukewarm. I realized that I had been living lukewarm. I wanted the best of both worlds. I wanted to fit in. And there's nothing wrong with fitting in if it's within God's will, but I wasn't willing to sacrifice the things that I wanted. That's when my faith became real to me. — Matt Diaz

It is properly said that the Devil can "quote Scripture to his purpose." The Bible is full of so many stories of contradictory moral purpose that every generation can find scriptural justification for nearly any action it proposes - from incest, slavery, and mass murder to the most refined love, courage, and self-sacrifice. And this moral multiple personality disorder is hardly restricted to Judaism and Christianity. You can find it deep within Islam, the Hindu tradition, indeed nearly all the world's religions. Perhaps then it is not so much scientists as people who are morally ambiguous. It — Carl Sagan

The more we have of Jesus, the greater the love we have; the greater the love, the greater the sacrifice; the greater the sacrifice, the more we become like Jesus; the more we become like Jesus, the more successful our local churches become. — Eric Samuel Timm

NOT LONG AGO I WAS READING A PASSAGE IN THE Bible in which Jesus was praying for his disciples. He prayed that they would love each other, as he'd taught them to do. He prayed that they'd embrace a mission to teach other people to create communities that loved each other, as they'd experienced with him. When I read the passage, though, I saw it differently. He wasn't just calling them into a life of sacrifice. He was calling them into a life of meaning, even the kind of meaning that would involve suffering. Suffering for a redemptive reason is hardly suffering, after all. — Donald Miller

Where are the people today who will respond to the call of Christ? Have we become so accustomed to "cheap grace" that we instinctively shy away from more demanding calls to obedience? "Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross."4 Why has the giving of money, for example, been unquestionably recognized as an element in Christian devotion and fasting so disputed? Certainly we have as much, if not more, evidence from the Bible for fasting as we have for giving. Perhaps in our affluent society fasting involves a far larger sacrifice than the giving of money. — Richard J. Foster

You might have Bible verses on the wall in every room of the house and yet the unspoken rituals reinforce self-centeredness rather than sacrifice. Thus — James K.A. Smith

It is true to say that I was nurtured on Bible stories but mostly concerned with sacrifice. If by some mischance I did, or said, anything which my father regarded as improper, he would say: 'Do not grieve the Lord by behaving so.' And if I suggested that I wanted to go somewhere, or meet somebody, he would say: 'It will not please the Lord.' — John George Haigh