Worthy Sacrifice

1 Chronicles 21:24

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying what it is worth. I cannot take what is yours and give it to the Lord. I will not offer a burnt offering that has cost me nothing!”

I am so blown away by this verse…wow!

Have you even read over something, and then re-read it, and re-read it…but then suddenly when you read it again at a different point in your life the significance of it just seems to jump out at you?

This is how I feel sometimes, and reading this verse definitely just shook my mind a little. Let’s back track for a minute here…so we are talking about that story of David’s sin against God of taking a census of Israel. God was quite upset at David for having gone against His will…and so God gave David three choices to choose from as a punishment. Wisely enough, out of the three choices, which were to either suffer 3 years of famine in the land, 3 months of destruction by his enemies, or 3 days of plague over the land, David said “…let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great. Do not let me fall into human hands” (verse 13 of the same chapter). This is so true! I would much rather fall into the wrath of God than the wrath of man because after all God’s love for us is greater than anything, and His mercy is abounding…so David made a wise choice in deciding to take God’s natural wrath…but even through this choice…70,000 people died as a result of David’s sin…man…imagine having that on your conscience. Not only was there this massive plague though, then God continues on to destroy Jerusalem…the sacred, much loved Jerusalem…yet just as David had said…God’s mercy is very great…and so He called off the angel of death to put away his sword and not destroy Jerusalem…at the sight of this…David does what he knows best to do…he shows his utter repentance by falling on his face with the rest of Israel’s leaders to show God how terrible he felt about sinning against Him. This guy had such a tender heart. I mean…even though he out-right sinned against God, he quickly realized his sin and ran right back to God. And God, in His infinite mercy, gladly accepted David’s repentance, enough that He allowed David to offer up a sacrifice. And here is where we get to the verse above…you see God had stopped the angel right at the threshing floor of Araunah. Araunah was threshing wheat as this all happened…can you imagine??!! You’re just completing your chore of the day…gathering up your harvest…getting ready to relax afterwards...when suddenly, you look up and there is the angel of death about to kill everything in sight, hand on sword…waiting on one command…but the bible says that “…just as the angel was preparing to destroy it, the Lord relented and said to the death angel, ‘Stop! That is enough!’” (verse 15) Wow…I don’t know what I would have done at the sight of all of this before me…nonetheless, God had mercy and David knew it…so David tells Araunah to sell him the threshing floor in order to build an altar to the Lord there. But Araunah is so humbled by this all that he tells David to just take it all, that he’ll even provide the oxen for the sacrifice and the grain offering, the tools, the wood, anything needed. Then David replies to him with those amazing words “No, I insist on paying what it is worth. I cannot take what is yours and give it to the Lord. I will not offer a burnt offering that has cost me nothing!”

I just can’t get over how impressive those words are! I mean do you realize what this means for us??

Here is David…this great, amazing, warrior, king guy and he speaks these wise words that honestly we need to apply to our everyday lives. “I cannot take what is yours and give it to the Lord.” Do you know that there are sometimes people who all they do is take, take, take. They offer things to God, but they’ve never actually paid a price for such. I feel this is a disturbing fact within God’s people nowadays…we have people left and right who say they love God with all their hearts and serve Him and are thankful for all He has done for them…yet what have they ever offered God back that did not cost them blood and sweat…that did not cost them a great price…?? People come and go to church as if it is something they are giving back to God…when church time was not intended as a time for us to simply set aside for God. No…church time is not God time…because God time is something you should live and breathe. It is when you wake up in the morning to either the sun shining brightly as well as when the deep chill from the cold hits you…it’s when you get up, get ready, get in your car, leave to your job or school…it’s when you sit at your desk, chair, lawn, or anyplace you are at as the day goes by…it’s when you come home and rest, sit down and eat, prepare to sleep, and finally shut eyes at the end of another day. All of that…is God time. He is…He was…and He will always be…Church time is simply a time when we can all come together and worship as one body in Christ. It is a time when we can come and delight with those who rejoice, feel for those who are in sorrow, pray with those who are in need, give thanks with those who are blessed. Church time is a time when we come to offer God a sacrifice of praise and adoration as a unified family. Yet, even so, people come to church as if it is a high cost to them. They think this is their gift to God, their share of time that they are giving up to and for God. “I will not offer a burnt offering that has cost me nothing!” How can we want so much from God…His protection, His provision, His mercy, compassion, comfort, happiness, joy, redemption, salvation, His love…yet not be willing to offer a sacrifice back that He is worthy of…one that we actually paid a price for….We should be ashamed of ourselves for being so self-centered and selfish…ashamed that we cannot offer God even a moment of our time as a true sacrifice…one that we know has cost us, one that we know we have paid a price for. Now I am not saying to go out and spend a ton on God, to go out and buy things for the church…those things are fine and dandy…but what God wants is for us to offer Him something that we consider worthy. When you are giving to a loved one…do you give them the cheapest, most grimy, raggedy, torn up, beat up, nasty looking gift…or do you take the time to pick and choose, examine, make sure of the right fit, color, and craft of the gift…don’t lie to yourself…you know you want to give that loved one the best…something that is going to leave them impressed and feeling special…well the same goes for God!!! Our offering to Him should take us time, should make us give up something, should cost us more than the average, because after all, we want to impress Him. Yea, you might say, but how can I possibly impress GOD…what could I ever give Him that would leave Him speechless…believe me…your obedience, your effort to know Him more, your desire to seek Him, your dedication to serve Him, your intention to live for Him, and your strive to be like Him…these are all things that cost us to do…because we have to sacrifice so much to do them…but every good gift takes some sort of sacrifice. It is time that we stop thinking to ourselves that us giving up one day of our busy week is enough sacrifice for God…it is time to stand up and say “I will not offer a burnt offering that has cost me nothing!” What will you offer Him?