Best Sacrifice

DEVOTION

MALACHI

BEST SACRIFICE

Mal 1:6-9

6 "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?" says the LORD Almighty. "It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, 'How have we shown contempt for your name?' 7 "You place defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' "By saying that the LORD's table is contemptible. 8 When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the LORD Almighty. 9 "Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?"-says the LORD Almighty.

NIV

Israel had gotten into a very bad habit of bringing less than the very best to be a sacrifice for their sins. They brought the blind, crippled, or diseased animals to the altar to be a sacrifice to God. In essence, they were saying he is not worthy of their best, but as long as they have these defective animals it would serve their flocks better to thin those defective ones out so as not to weaken the flock or herd by passing on their genetic defects. They did not honor God with an animal without defects. Can we say that we are not guilty of offering God our very best? God loves us so much that he offered his very best for our salvation. He offered His Son to reconcile himself to his creation. What is our very best that we can offer to the LORD? What sacrifice do we have that would not defile his altar? The first sacrifice we think of is to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to the Lord, this is our spiritual act of worship. Most of the time we look at that as not defiling our bodies and that is where many believers have come up with the, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t dance, and so other don’ts. But they seem to forget the, don’t overeat. But that is not what Romans 12:1-2 is all about. We have to remember that the Israelites offered dead animals, or at least they were slain on the altar, therefore they could not be offered again. This is also true of Jesus. He was slain for our sin, he was offered once, as he died on the cross. Jesus does not need to be offered again. However, we are to continually offer ourselves, living furiously, with vigor, in serving our Lord. We are to devote the active powers of our body and soul to the service of our Lord. If all we do is try to live up to what we think defiles our bodies, we have missed the point. Jesus said that it is not what goes into the body that defiles it, for what entered also leaves. But what defiles our bodies, our souls, is what comes out of our mouth. How we live, what we say, how we interact with others but most importantly is how we worship. If our worship is lack-luster, hum-drum, ho-hum, are we offering God less than our very best and thus not honoring him by not bringing all we are as living sacrifice? It is not about what we don’t do, it is all about what we actively do in our daily living and in our daily worship of our Lord, including our active vivacious worship together as we gather in the house of the Lord. That is when we might sing that song, if you happy and you know it, your face will surely show it. This applies to both our daily lives and in our worship. We are happy because we have brought the Lord our best of our living sacrifice, but more importantly, we are happy because God brought us his very best sacrifice.