This morning I finished reading 2 Samuel in my quiet time. In all honesty I can hardly call it a quiet time today. I woke up with a dominating headache and struggled to get out of bed and get going at all. By the time I finally did my morning routine was cut short and I felt rushed as I read through the last three chapters of the book. This morning I wasn't going to have time to spend in prayer and meditation and journaling after I read, like I usually plan for.
But God knew about my headache and this morning's reading was powerful enough that it didn't require meditation and journaling for profound truth to sink in.
At the very end of my reading was 2 Samuel 24:24, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver." (emphasis mine)
David was buying the field in order build an altar and offer sacrifices in order to appeal to the LORD for mercy. He had ordered a census to be taken, against the will of the LORD, and in judgment of his sin, a three day pestilence fell on the people. Thousands were dying, and David was moved with compassion, wanting to make things right.
What struck me was the sentence I highlighted in that verse above: "...for I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing." Araunah, the owner of the field, offered the field, his oxen, and his oxen's yoke to David as a gift in order for the sacrifice to be made. David had the opportunity to take the easy way out, to offer sacrifices to the LORD that would have cost him nothing at all. But he chose not to. David recognized that such sacrifices were not really sacrifices at all.
The title of this blog is "The Cost of Sacrifice" because, by its very nature, sacrifice is costly. Merriam-Webster online defines sacrifice as "an act of offering to a deity something precious," or "destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else" and "something given up or lost." If it doesn't cost you anything, it is not really a sacrifice.
I'm not going to go into all the profound implications this has on my life as a believer. The truth is that I am still thinking through the ramifications of what sacrifice actually means myself. As believers, we are called in Romans 12 to "present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God." If we are being honest with ourselves, we know that this will cost something. Are you willing to pay the price? Am I?Labels: journal/quiet time, reflections