Planted by Water

I’m back! What a week!! Praise God for full lives!

But over the last couple of Sundays I did actually get round to bringing the word that God has been giving me about sacrifice. I know that the OT sacrifices ultimately point to the once and for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross - as far as dealing with sin is concerned, there is no need for anymore sacrifice! And yet - we still do offer sacrifices in the new covenant - worship, prayer, praise, giving, serving, good works etc. All of these are referred to as sacrifice and we as the church are a spiritual temple offering spiritual sacrifices (1 Pet.2:5).

I realise also that sacrifice is at the heart of worship in the sense that a life of worship is a life laid down for God - totally given over to him! Without that, our outer expressions of praise and worship are worthless. But having understood that, it was with the vitally important, corporate act of praise and worship that I was concerned and that I felt God was speaking to me about. I felt that some understanding of the OT approach to sacrifices gave insights into this and it was with this in mind that I studied them. Here are some of the things I came up with (thanks for those who shared your thoughts with me; you’ll see that they helped) . Our sacrifice of praise and worship must be:

1. Costly - David wouldn’t bring a sacrifice that cost him nothing (2 Sam.24:24). Our gatherings for worship and for prayer cannot just be something we manage to fit in to our busy lives when we have time! We have to sacrifice our time, energy, effort, comfort and convenience, preferences and preconceptions,  ‘respectability’ etc.
2. Only the Best - God was very particular that all the sacrifices had to be without any kind of defect. See how mad he gets about defective offerings in Malachi 1! Abels’ offerings was ‘acceptable’ in contrast to Cain’s because he brought ’several choice lambs of the best of his flock.’ (Gen.4:4). We can’t stroll casually and carelessly into God’s Presence and just offer up tired and half-hearted afterthoughts of thanksgiving! It’s unacceptable!!
3. Fresh. The offerings always had to be fresh (Lev.19:6; Deut.16:4) - we must never allow our worship to become just the same old routine, a stale ritual, just going through the motions. It must be a fresh and living sacrifice of worship in vital response to a current revelation of God’s grace.

I’ll share some further thoughts on this tomorrow.