Disclaimer: First and foremost, I am writing to myself.
But the king said to Araunah, “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.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
2 Samuel 24:24
David refused to offer a sacrifice to the Lord that cost him nothing.
Why is this?
Put it in a different perspective. Would a husband dare give his wife an anniversary present from a Cracker Jack box? Any man as mad as this would soon find himself without a bed to sleep in!
A gift, an offering, is of no value if it costs the giver nothing. The cost may be money, time, sweat, or any other price, but an offering always has a price.
David knew this.
We do not.
Cheap Sacrifices
Every day of our lives, we offer sacrifices to the Lord our God which cost us nothing at all.
Wait, sacrifices? When do we offer sacrifices?
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1
Our sacrifices consist of the offering of our day to day lives.
Paul pleads with us, because of the mercy God has shown us, to give our selves to God as a living sacrifice.
David refused to make a cheap offering to God because he feared the mercy that God showed him in ending the plague which David had brought down on his own head.
How then can we, who have received the greater mercy, offer cheap lives to God?
It boils down to this: our christianity in the West costs us nothing. It is easy to be a christian today. Say a little prayer, go to a little church, and give up a little sin.
This is not what Jesus had in mind when He said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
We offer Cracker Jack prizes to God, and see nothing wrong with it.
What then does is mean to present our bodies as living sacrifices?
Matthew Henry says it best:
The presenting of the body to God implies not only the avoiding of the sins that are committed with or against the body, but the using of the body as a servant of the soul in the service of God. It is to glorify God with our bodies (1 Cor. 6:20), to engage our bodies in the duties of immediate worship, and in a diligent attendance to our particular callings, and be willing to suffer for God with our bodies, when we are called to it. It is to yield the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible
Where in your life do you see these things?
Where in your life does your spiritual worship cost you time, effort, money, energy, or effort?
Where in your life do you pass off cheap christianity as spiritual worship?
The Greater Price
There is an important difference between David’s offering, and our offering.
David’s offering averted his plague; our offering does not avert ours.
The plague of our sin is averted through Christ’s sacrifice alone.
This is the mercy of God Paul spoke of which leads us to present our bodies and lives as living sacrifices.
While David’s offering was an offering of propitiation, our offering is an offering of thanksgiving.
God does not require of us what He has not done Himself. We ought not offer cheap lives to God, because God Himself paid a Great Price for our lives.
You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 6:20
We live like this because God Himself paid the greatest price of all.
Christian, you were bought at a price. Now live like it.
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