March 8, 2012
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Our Sacrifices Sustain Us
While reading through the lovely book of Leviticus the first few chapters go on and on about different offerings/sacrifices the people of God could give to Him. The ironic thing about a lot of these sacrifices though, was that for most of them the person giving up the offering would get to eat from it! It would be like sacrificing a chicken and then getting to eat barbequed chicken.
In our day and age the word sacrifice has such a negative tone to it… one of suffering and pain. And yet in Biblical times, sacrifice meant barbeque! And it meant prosperity from the Lord! God guaranteed blessings as people would choose to share from their flocks and their harvests both with God and with His priests/ministers. It was after Solomon offered up so many offerings of bulls to the Lord that they lost count, that God appeared to Solomon in a dream and wanted to bless Solomon with anything he desired (Solomon chose wisdom). So not only did Solomon provide his country with the greatest barbeque ever, he was also blessed by God granting him whatever he desired. Pretty wild!
I’ve blogged before that I believe the greatest way to fight materialism is through giving. The people who are able to tithe consistently and give freely towards missions/charities tend to be more and more free from the grip of money. But those who withhold the tithe and are tight-fisted toward the poor tend to become more and more miserable in their pursuit of money… they are never satisfied… because if they were indeed satisfied at some point, wouldn’t they be able to spare some of their money?
Our sacrifices sustain us. When we have to sacrifice something we aren’t supposed to focus on the supposed “pain and suffering” of letting something go or enduring something difficult, rather we are to focus on the barbeque that God is preparing for us. Every sacrifice is a demonstration that the world doesn’t own us but rather we are secure in the hands of God. The word sacrifice should bring the same joy the word barbeque does. It should be our delight.
Writing this entry made me hungry…
