The first law of sacrifice

Yesterday for devotional, we watched Christ and the rich young ruler.  Pipalicious was bothered that even though the rich man had kept all the commandments, Christ said he couldn't get to heaven unless he gave away all his money too.  "Isn't he a good man?" she asked.

It is a good question. I have had it on my mind much since then.  I have thought about how we can do so much, but if we keep anything back, or make anything more important to us than what God asks us to do, it will keep us back.

I remember an old saying from my youth: "Christ doesn't really ask us to sacrifice anything: he simply asks us to give up our old tattered cloak for a new and glorious one."  This morning I read about Adam and Eve and how the first thing they were asked to do upon leaving the garden of Eden was to offer up sacrifices. I thought about the necessity in the Law of Moses to offer up the firstlings of the flock.  In my mind I realized that I had always thought that a shepherd would have a whole bunch of sheep and then take the first one that had been born and sacrifice that.  This is not the case.  They would offer the first one before they knew that any more sheep were coming...the first one without blemish.

Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, his link to the promise of "seed without number":

Why is it, when we are doing so much, that God still asks us to sacrifice?  Could it be because we are caught up in lesser things and He wants to free us of that?  Like in the first video linked above, Christ promises that with God, all things are possible: accumulation of wealth, good health, children, time, etc.

Upon reflection on the rich young man's situation, I realized that Christ never said that "you will never have wealth again."  He just asked him to give it up for now.  In fact, I know that the earth is the Lord's and all the bounty therein.  Who knows but that immediately upon giving up his all to the poor that he wouldn't have had a multitude of blessings pour out to fill all his needs, taking away the burden of obsessing about wealthy and acquiring it?

It make me wonder, what comes first in my life?  What does He want me to sacrifice?  Does God and His will truly come first in my life, or, like the rich young man, do I hold things back as well?

There is also that scripture that keeps floating in my mind: "to obey is better than to sacrifice"...hmmmm. Definitely food for thought.