On the momentous occasion of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana’s 197th anniversary, the Moderator of the General Assembly, Rt. Rev. Dr. Abraham Nana Opare Kwakye has called on members of the church and the wider Christian community to be ready to sacrifice for the sake of the one who has called them, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Preaching at a thanksgiving service held at the conference room of the General Assembly Office, Church House, Osu in Accra, on the theme “Living Sacrifices” from Romans 12:1–2, the Moderator reminded the church of Paul’s admonition on practical Christian living.
He urged congregants to use their spiritual minds properly and resist conformity to worldly standards. Reflecting on the history of the church, Rt. Rev. Dr. Opare Kwakye described the arrival of the early missionaries as a story of sacrifice.
“They came and they died,” he said, noting that both European and African missionaries gave their lives for the sake of the gospel. “We are beneficiaries of the sacrifices of the early missionaries; their sacrifices resemble that of Jesus,” he declared. He explained that presenting oneself as a living sacrifice requires complete death to sin and the offering of the whole self to God as an act of worship.
“It means being obedient, deliberately choosing to align with God,” he said, stressing that submission of personal desires must be continuous. He described living sacrifice as “a whole life worship – everyday actions, choices, so we become pleasing to God not to men.”
The Moderator emphasized that being living sacrifices is also about transformation—living differently from the world and becoming new persons. He said such transformation of the individual will inevitably lead to the transformation of society. “When God calls us to become living sacrifice – it is a very heavy package,” he noted, adding that those who went ahead sacrificed for the present generation.
He reminded the church that the early missionaries came because the Lord Jesus commanded them, affirming that it is God who founded the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. He urged members to be alive to godly work and deny themselves worldly ideas and practices that lead them astray. “We cannot do this until we are connected to Christ,”.
