I've been thinking a lot these past few weeks about sacrificial worship. I guess, in a way, all of our worship is sacrificial. In investing time, talent and treasure into something, whatever that something may be, we are indeed making a sacrifice. For it is always possible & most of the time favorable to keep those things to ourselves. I've also been considering just how meaningless my sacrifices really are. For example, I am so quick to refrain from watching tv or getting on facebook when I know there are other things to be done, but though I feel as if I am being sacrificial, these trivial things have completely lost their value to me. I can say with full integrity that I do not treasure my tv and I do not treasure facebook. Which is why it is so silly for me to feel at peace in settling with tiny "offerings" such as these.
I'm reading through the Old Testement right now. Which I feel like i've been saying for almost a year. Probably because I have. It's taking me much longer than I predicted. But, with that I am okay. I am learning. I am discovering deeper depths of God's character than I imagined I could. And in that, I am learning to treasure him more. "There is so much joy in treasuring God."-a wise man I know. So anyway, a couple weeks ago as I was finishing up 2 Samuel and I came across this. As King David was commanded, he went to Araunah the Jebusite in order to offer up a burnt offering to the Lord. When he arrived, he offered to pay Araunah for the threshing floor but Araunah refused his payment, offering him oxens to be sacrificed along with whatever other means he needed free of charge. But the king said to him, "No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing." (2 Sam. 24:24)
It's such an elementary idea. We as Christians understand that Christ's death on the cross was the largest sacrifice that God could have chosen to make in payment for our sins. However, though we understand subconciously that this practice should be applied to our own lives, we, or I rather, often fail to see my sacrifices for what they truly are. Nothing. I cannot give to God anything that He did not first give to me. So how, then, can I be so quick to be closed-fisted with the lot that I have been delt. Choosing to "sacrifice" things that costs my heart no pain or sorrow. Exactly, I can't be.
And with this wave of realization, comes discontent. and conviction. and brokeness. and peace.
So I write in the midst of sacrifice. Not a swiftly satisfying sacrifice. But rather, a slow, dragging my feet, chiseling-away-layers-of -what-I-thought-I-knew-was-truth kind of sacrifice. One that hurts, but heals. One that met me where I was and challenged me to up-root. And I write from a Spirit of confusion and questioning, but trust in God. And who His word says He is.
When the image of what I thought I knew was broken, there came the rain.
And with every crack of a raindrop comes a cry for more of my heart.
An offering of peace & clarity.
Someone very dear to my heart provided me with "Job" by John Piper last year. Not only is Job my favorite book in the old testement, but John Piper's summary of it is executed in poem form. Mmm. Stirring to my soul. So into this particular ingenius truth I have been leaning these past few days. Maybe you'll treasure it also.
And now come, broken, to the cross,
where Christ embraced all human loss,
and let us bow before the throne
of God, who gives and takes his own
and promises-whatever toll,
he takes-to satisfy our soul.
He is not poor nor much enticed,
who loses everything but Christ
It wont be long before the rod
becomes the tender kiss of God.
May your offerings be genuinely heart-renching. May your sacrifices cost you more than you're willing to give.
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