An Offering that Costs Nothing

You’ll find that many times when people are willing to depart with something they believe is of value, it isn’t always that valuable to them. But when it does cost the one giving, there is a deeper price in the value.

In 1 Chronicles 21 you’ll find the story of how King David, even though God had given him victory after victory over his enemies, decided to number the people of the Lord just so he could see how many fighting warriors he had. But God wasn’t pleased about this. God had always taken care of David’s armies, large or small, and this act by the king showed that he was trying to rely on his own strength instead of trusting God for strength to win battles.

Because of this God brought judgment on the land. You know that the punishments of the sins of leaders are most of the time felt by those they lead. And the result here was that 70,000 people died. Yet at a point David was instructed to build an altar of sacrifice and repent to God to stop the plague.

Someone offered David the place and resources, but David refused, saying, “I will not present an offering to God that costs me nothing.” The altar was bought and established and the plague was lifted.

I look out today and see people’s lives, especially Christians, who live unsatisfied, unholy and defeated lives all because they try to give God offerings of their lives that are cheap and cost them nothing. They’ve never surrendered much of anything unless they really didn’t want it or gave minimally when they could have done better.

The life-changing work of the gospel is free to those who will receive Jesus as Savior, but there is a deeper cost to serving Him than many want to pay.