Good Morning Friends,
“Gad went to David and said, ‘Go up and build
an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.’ So David
went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad. Araunah saw the king and his
men coming toward him and bowed down before the king. Araunah said, ‘Why has my
lord the king come to his servant?’ ‘To buy your threshing floor,’ David
answered, ‘so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people
may be stopped.’ Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take whatever
pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, threshing
sledges and ox yokes for the wood. O king, Araunah gives all this to the king.’
… The king replied to Araunah, ‘No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not
sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.’ David
bought the threshing floor and the oxen. David built an altar to the Lord there
and sacrificed burnt offerings.” (2 Samuel 24:18-25)
God sent a plague on the people of Israel and
70,000 died. David was grieved and knew the guilt for disobedience was his but
the punishment had fallen on his people. He pled to the Lord and the Lord told
David to make a sacrifice at a particular spot, the threshing floor of Araunah.
David obeyed and went to Araunah.
In a gesture of great respect, Araunah offered
the threshing floor as a gift. David refused the gift and paid fully for the
land. His reasoning was that he could not offer God something that cost
nothing.
God is not pleased with gifts that are leftovers,
that we don’t want, or that cost us nothing. God is pleased with sacrifice.
Sacrifice of time … sacrifice of effort … sacrifice of finances.
It is not the value of the gift that impresses God.
It is what a gift expresses about our heart that God seeks. God seeks hearts that
they are willing to sacrifice for Him.
Do your gifts really cost you? Are your gifts a
sacrifice from a heart of love?
His, by Grace, Steve
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