'A sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God' (Phil. 4:18).

The same one that wrote these words, wrote Romans 12:1 and 2

Corinthians 8.  In Romans 12:1, it is not 'things' that are sent to a fellow

-believer, but 'your bodies' that are presented to God, living sacrifices and

acceptable.  In 2 Corinthians 8 the Corinthian church are reminded of what

the Philippians had done,

'How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and

their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.  For

to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were

willing of themselves; praying us with much intreaty that we would

receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to

the saints.  And this they did, not as we hoped, but First gave their

Own Selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God' (2 Cor. 8:2 -

Here was 'sacrifice' of riches abounding out of deep poverty, an 'odour

of sweet smell', for it was a 'willing' offering; here was the reason for its

acceptance, 'they first gave themselves', and this is the link between all

these Scriptures; they gave of their possessions as well as themselves, both

to the Lord and to the apostle.

It was not the amount, nor the intrinsic value of the gifts that

Epaphroditus brought with him from Philippi to Rome that counted with Paul.

At the most it could have been but a small parcel; it was the spirit that

prompted the gift that caused him so much joy.  As he wrote to the

'If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a

man hath, and not according to that he hath not' (2 Cor. 8:12).

At the end of this section of 2 Corinthians, Paul looks away from their

gifts to the one great Gift of Christ, saying,

'Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift' (2 Cor. 9:15).

Our gifts are acceptable in so far as they reflect the

character of

God's great Gift.  If we are called upon in our small degree

to offer service

that is marked by sacrifice, are we not after all reflecting

back in tiny

measure the greatest Sacrifice of all? 'Of Thine Own have we

given Thee' (1

Chron. 29:14) will be our confession even though we give our

The application of such a figure as 'an odour of a sweet smell a

sacrifice acceptable to God' by the apostle Paul to the fellowship of the

Philippians is very wonderful, but it is not the only time that such a

reference was made by him.

In the epistle to the Ephesians, he sums up all practice under the

heading of 'walk', opening the practical section with an exhortation to the

believer to 'walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called' (Eph. 4:1),

and follows it with a warning not to walk as the darkened Gentiles.  After

speaking about the believer's attitude to the new man and the old, he returns

to this question of walk in Ephesians 5 where he speaks of it under three