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God’s holy weapons against Satan, Part 3: The gift of priesthood

priest

“Don’t sacrifice for your children—you will only resent them for it!” So a boss told me, decades ago. If she’s right, what does that say about the priesthood of Christ and his sacrifice? Surrendering what we’re reluctant to give, we’re likely to resent the beneficiaries of our “sacrifice.” But I think she had a distorted (yet common) view of sacrifice.

For the past five weeks, we’ve discussed spiritual warfare, in particular, Satan’s strategies (12, 3) and God’s holy weapons (4 and 5). Sacrifice is God’s ultimate weapon. Many folks think that “sacrifice” means something like this: “Take something you really like and kill it.” If that’s how we view sacrifice, then we surely open the door to resentment, which is a great toxin of the soul. The roots of the word sacrifice are, “to make holy” or “to do the holy thing.” How is something made holy? By making a gift of it on the altar—offering something precious to God so that God can make use of it with a power and graciousness beyond our imagining.

Sacrificial giving is the highest form of freedom, yielding the highest form of gift. There is no self-seeking, no “strings attached” in sacrificial giving. That offering of what’s precious, in a spirit of unselfishness and trust, is why Satan hates sacrifice. Sacrifice is contrary to the work of Satan, who’s motto is: “Me first! Me! Always first!” Hands and heart, spread wide open upon the altar of sacrifice, are the fullest sign of rejecting Satan.

Read more at Aleteia. 

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