Uncomfortable S2 - Day 11

24 But 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.”

Let’s sit on this phrase momentarily: I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.

Do we say that? I know that we don’t offer burnt sacrifices to God, at least not how we used to in biblical times. Rather, we do offer our burnt-out lives, our over-retailed, over-worked, overly-connected mess of the lives that we live and give them to God in worship.

While we don’t offer burnt offerings, we do often offer burnt-up lives. We have sacrificed our lives on so many altars over the years that it sometimes feels like we have nothing to offer God.

But here is the beautiful thing: God is willing to take those sacrifices, as burnt-up as they already are, and make something beautiful and new. We are without blemish and mark when we are made new by Christ. We are new creations.

Back to the text. David understood that there is a cost to worshiping God, and there is a cost to living our lives for Christ. David was unwilling to sacrifice things that he had not paid a price for. He couldn’t give God something that was not his, something that was someone else’s and he was only borrowing.

In the same way, our worship must come from us, from our hearts. I have watched people who didn’t want to be in Worship and couldn’t get the words from their hearts. Some stand in our congregations who cannot worship because they cannot see the altars in their lives. They cannot see where God has been good, has walked with them, and has been for them. They are in a place where they cannot connect with the goodness and greatness of God.

It would be easy to say that they are unwilling to submit or need to open their hearts more. That is too simplistic. Worship, true worship, comes from a desire to honor God for what he has done, to recognize his goodness, and to present ourselves, in all our mess, to God and allow him the power over our lives. But when we can’t see where God has been good, then we can’t find a place in our hearts to worship.

To those, I want to say one thing. Stay with us. Even if you don’t worship, be in the place of worship, and perhaps it will also become your song. David wasn’t willing to worship until the sacrifice was his, but he would build the altar regardless. How are you trying to find those altars in your life, those places where God has been good and we can remind ourselves that while worship has a cost, it is ultimately bringing us closer to God.

JOURNAL:

1. How can we find avatars in our lives? 
2. What do you feel you sacrificed to God, and how has it brought you to the worship space? 
3. Is it possible that God is still working on our hearts when we cannot worship?
4. Why is staying in the worship space important even when you don’t feel like it?