A little bit of the story that lies behind this verse. God has just sent a plague upon Israel and King David is instructed to buy the threshing floor of Araunah and build an altar there and offer a sacrifice to the Lord. Now I love the position that King David takes when Araunah offers him the threshing floor the wood and the offering for free. We all know that King David could have just asked if it had not been offered to him for free but King David understood the meaning of a sacrifice. Now sacrifice is defined as the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim. Now this just makes me wonder how many times I have taken this position and decided that I would allow my sacrifice to cost me something. You see King David understood that true sacrifice that is pleasing to God MUST cost something, otherwise it has no value. Think about it most times that something is handed to us or we do something that costs us nothing it holds little to no value in our eyes. For example, I get a new phone that has been given to me, as much as I love my phone and I am grateful for it, it's value in my eyes is minimum. On the other hand if I buy a $649 dollar phone I will take care of it like fine china.
Sacrifice is not sacrifice if it does not require exactly that... SACRIFICE! I know that statement is completely redundant but the truth is when you think about it, it makes complete and total sense. The scriptures say in Romans 12:1 "Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship." If we are to worship God with our lives and with our bodies it WILL cost us something. I think the problem with most christians today is that we want God's blessing, we want to hear to voice of God, we want to see His hand at work but we are not willing to sacrifice some of our time in order to receive. Our relationship with God has become transactional. How many of us would be willing to admit that if we had the option to choose between our acts of worship costing us something and it being offered to us for free we would still choose for it to cost something? The truth is most of us would take the easy route out and choose for it to be free. The sad truth is that most of us are trying to give God our scraps and pretending like it is costing us something. If God is calling us to do something we need to rise up to the challenge and do it with excellence. Allowing whatever it is to cost us however much God decides it should cost us. Nobody said that following God would be easy. There are many obstacles that we will face and there will be much sacrifice. I pray that I will look at my life and the sacrifice that God calls me to how King David did refusing to give God my scraps and challenging myself to always give God my best. There will be tears, there will be sweat, there will be countless hours that will be sacrificed but all of that is just minimal when you look at the big picture and understand that our reward lies in heaven. Spending eternity with a loving God that will look at me, that will look at you, and say that He was pleased with our sacrifice will be a reward in itself. My prayer is that I will look to Jesus as my example as it is said in Hebrews.
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I pray that whoever is reading this that God will enlighten your hearts to understand His beautiful purpose in your life. I pray that if anything I have written is against anything that God would want to speak into your life that you will quickly forget it. And finally I pray that God will continue the work that He has begun in you and that He will see it to completion on that glorious day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. Amen.
In His Unfailing Love,
Mateo
