"Sacrifice"

Today, I think about the fathomless, incomprehensible, all sufficient demonstration of the love of God toward us. He gave His only son, Jesus, to pay the full penalty of our sin, so that we could truly live and come close to Him in spirit again.
I wrote this song in November 2000. I share it with you, with the hope that our hearts will be filled with a new and more profound understanding and love for Him and His sacrifice of love.


Oh, perfect Sacrifice
Pure and spotless love and life
Poured out in crimson streams on my heart
Washing clean the darkest part

Oh precious Sacrifice
Broken body in my place
Such love, as I have never found
Healing wounds in broken ground*

I will ever praise Your name
Lamb so sweet, who bore my shame
I lay down my life, to follow You alone
Sacrifice, alive and on the throne!

"Sacrifice" words and music by Diane Nelson - Novemeber 2000

* "broken ground" has a multipicity of meaning.

Our hearts are often referred to as 'ground'. In the Bible it talks about 'tilling up the fallow ground of your heart' which points to the fact that our hearts can become 'hard' because of sinful habits and attitudes. The heart is broken by the very fact that is is 'hardened' - it becomes dysfunctional.

Also, when something is hard, it can 'break' or 'shatter' when a blow is hard enough. We can respond to circumstances and relationships in our lives in selfishness, bitterness, hostility and revenge which all harden our hearts and at some point, some element comes into our lives and hits us causing our hearts to shatter in a million pieces. A heart broken in this way is devastating.

Thankfully, God, in His great love and mercy, knew that we would need a remedy for a broken heart, and in the sacrifice of Christ made it effective to bring healing to the brokenness that can occur in our hearts.

Remember, also, that we were created from the dust of the earth (ground) - Isaiah prophesied that "...by His (Christ's) stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5) In God's incredible plan, it was ordained that in Christ's sinless, perfect body being broken - our sinful, broken bodies (ground) would be healed.

I truly cannot explain or describe all that my heart sees and feels in this one concept alone - but, suffice to say, I am in awe, lost in speechless worship before Him because of the magnitude of His love.