{"id":290,"date":"2009-12-22T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html"},"modified":"2009-12-22T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-22T06:00:00","slug":"advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Prayer, Day 24: Offering Ourselves as Sacrifice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tuesday, the fourth week of Advent<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><em>&#8220;Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, &#8216;Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.&#8221; Hebrews 10:5 (NRSV)<\/em><\/div>\n<p>I seldom take the time to consider all the planning the Incarnation took, all the promises made and waited for by the faithful before Christ finally put on the body prepared for him. What amazing humility it took for the Creator who formed humans in their mother&#8217;s wombs, to submit himself to being formed. The embodied God was a living sacrifice. What&#8217;s more, he calls us who are made in his image and likeness &#8220;to be living sacrifices, dedicated and acceptable to God. That is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people,&#8221; we are told in Romans 12:1. As we move into the final days before the Nativity of Christ, let us consider the role our bodies plays in the greatest story every told. And let us try with all our might, to yield these bodies, to the will of God.<\/p>\n<div><strong>Word made flesh,<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/div>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s hard to believe that I am a temple, your tabernacle and dwelling place. Even more incredible is the truth that I am made in your image and likeness. I haven&#8217;t respected my body as I should, nor honored it as I would any church building that I&#8217;d walk into. As I prepare for your coming, help me to see my body as what it is: a living sacrifice. And Jesus, help me to obey your word, and not model my behavior by the world&#8217;s standards, but be transformed by the renewing of my mind, so that I can discern what your will is: what is good, acceptable, and mature. I need you, body and soul.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Come, Lord Jesus.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney Tuesday, the fourth week of Advent &#8220;Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, &#8216;Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.&#8221; Hebrews 10:5 (NRSV) I seldom take the time to consider&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,46,14,25,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-advent-prayer","category-bible","category-jesus","category-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advent Prayer, Day 24: Offering Ourselves as Sacrifice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent Prayer, Day 24: Offering Ourselves as Sacrifice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Claudia Mair Burney Tuesday, the fourth week of Advent &#8220;Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, &#8216;Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.&#8221; Hebrews 10:5 (NRSV) I seldom take the time to consider&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-22T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Advent Prayer, Day 24: Offering Ourselves as Sacrifice","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Advent Prayer, Day 24: Offering Ourselves as Sacrifice","og_description":"By Claudia Mair Burney Tuesday, the fourth week of Advent &#8220;Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, &#8216;Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.&#8221; Hebrews 10:5 (NRSV) I seldom take the time to consider&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html","og_site_name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","article_published_time":"2009-12-22T06:00:00+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html","name":"Advent Prayer, Day 24: Offering Ourselves as Sacrifice","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-12-22T06:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-12-22T06:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-24-offering-ourselves-as-sacrifice.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Advent Prayer, Day 24: Offering Ourselves as Sacrifice"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/","name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}