Sacrifice

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

SACRIFICE

Prov 21:27

27 The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable — how much more so when brought with evil intent!

NIV

Why would a wicked person bring a sacrifice to God? Being morally wrong, a bad person would even want to bring a sacrifice to God? Then to do it with an evil intent makes it even more detestable. We could say that we in some sense are morally wrong people simply because we commit sin, even though we desire not to. But that is not the case, because of our faith in Jesus, God has declared us righteous, holy and blameless. Therefore we are left we those who have not accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior as being the wicked. Now it might be possible there are religious people who are still classified as the wicked. We should consider not being religious, if that is true. It might be possible there are people who attend some church and simply live as any other unsaved person lives. They might even give in the offering and this might well be who this proverb is directed towards. Some religious people might even read the bible, and miss the point made here, because they believe their religiosity makes them holy. We cannot ever get caught up in that trap. We know we have sin in our lives, we know we cannot be righteous in and of ourselves or because we attend church. We know it is by faith in Jesus Christ that we are saved. Our sacrifice is acceptable to God because of Jesus. But if we get into the mindset that we give to get, we are in deep trouble. This whole idea that was spread in the 70’s and maybe even in the 80’s which might still be around today, that we cannot out give God may have developed from and/or into an evil intent. The purpose of that teaching was to give more and more to this particular ministry, which was supposed to be giving to God, then God would make sure the giver received far more money that he gave. That is nothing but an evil plot or intent. The other false teaching was the seed faith concept which was pretty much the same thing. Whatever we need we should give. If we need love, give love, but the whole of it was the author of this idea was wanting us to give him money, as if he was doing the work of God, then we would get money. It is all an evil intent by someone to get rich on the backs of the spiritually weak. Another false teacher was selling timeshares in an empire he and his wife were building for supposed believers. All an evil intent to fleece the flock. We have to always be on guard against the evil plots of the wolves in sheep’s clothing. We have to stay true to the course God has laid out before us. We give simply because we want to. It is not paying God back, it is not trying to buy his love or earn any brownie points. Giving does not make us a better Christian. Our sacrifices should be out of our love for God. True much of the funds we give go to support the works of the local church. But we need the local church, we need that place of gathering to worship together, to strengthen and encourage each other. In the days of the New Testament church they met in homes. Somehow, sometime, those meetings evolved into needing a building, or a place larger than homes would afford. Not sure how all that happened but here we are today, some churches with massive expensive structures, with multiple pastors or employees that need massive amounts of money to operate. We are not sure if this is what God meant about evil intent, but it seems something is not right there. Let us always be about God, about his way for our lives. Let us not get caught up in the trappings of this world, even doing church as the world does. Let us bring our gifts, our sacrifice to God from a heart of devotion to him and him alone, not for anything other than because we love him. We should not even bring it out of a sense of obligation or duty, but only out of love.