7 Pounds

“The Acts of Sacrifice”

by Danny B. Smith, Purple Ark Ministries

© Copyright Reserved  February 28th 2009

Roman 12: 1-2  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Have ever sacrificed yourself to help someone in trouble? This devotional is about the acts of sacrifice. In a recent movie, Seven Pounds, the actor Will Smith portrays a mysterious man who uses a stolen idenity of an IRS agent name Ben.  After causing a terrible accident that took the lives of his wife and a family that was traveling head on.

Will Smith in this movie plays a grieving man who gain access to a list of people who are in need of some kind of help. Ben,  embarks on a journey looking for strangers with serious illnesses, financial troubles and victims of abuse. In this journey of atonement, Ben is willing to give seven pounds by way of an organ donation to save someone who would otherwise die if they did receive the donor organs.

A series of qualifying events find Ben ready to complete the final act of sacrifice by taking his life to make his body parts available to save a the selected group of people that he had chosen to give seven pound of himself. Many would say, "what a beautiful example of selfless sacrifice".

I believe that every minute that we live, an attempt to right a wrong is been measured. Consider the man who tells the police that it was not his teenage son who was driving the car when an accident took the lives of a family on vacation. What looks to be so noble and morally correct is without faith. The measure of our faith must include believing that God is ever present and that He would provide answers to the moral question that we struggle with. The human acts of morality without faith can be look upon as man's continued effort to fix what God created. I am not making a judgment of how man's moral acts will be measured..

We must learn by searching the word of God, and asking the Holy Spirit to give us direction. The question I ask today is at what point are we leaving God out of this difficult moment in our lives?

Our entire life is a classroom that God has prepared for us to learn from. We are not expected to get every single question right. However, it is important in any classroom to ask the difficult questions and to lean not to our own understanding as we seek His perfect will.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit." 

Prayer

Dear Lord, teach us how to become a living sacrifice!  Come Holy Spriit, take us into the classroom of God.  We need you oh God, we need you.  Forgive us when we take away our trust in You!  We want to learn how to be still in the moments of crisis.  It is You that we depend on, it is You!  In Jesus Name Amen

Please pass this devotional message to a friend or a stranger that does not know how much God loves them!

Email your comments:  dan@purpleark.org