"When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the Lord Almighty (Malachi 1:8)
The sacrificial offering requirements for the people of Israel outlined in the Old Testament may seem to the modern reader as onerous and unreasonable, but they were fundamentally about giving God our best. Offering God anything less than our best diminishes our act of worship as it devalues the worthiness of the One whom we worship. While these sacrificial requirements were fulfilled by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our response to God is no less in the New Testament. Jesus told the disciples to leave everything and follow Him; the believers in the early church shared everything they had; and Paul urged the Romans, "In view of God's mercy, to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12:1).
I don't want to dishonour God with sacrificial seconds, I want to honour Him with ALL that I am, loving Him with 'all my heart, my soul and my mind' (Matthew 22:37)!
No comments:
Post a Comment