What Sacrifice?

In my Christian walk, I admittedly feel at times that I fall far short of what God would expect of me. I am sure that my behaviour always falls short of His expectations. No matter how hard I try, that is a given. For this reason, I am so very thankful for my redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary. As a believer, I ask over and over for forgiveness and receive it through miraculous grace each and every time. Another area where I often feel inadequate is the amount of time and resources that I give to His service. In the Old Testament there are long lists of appropriate and sometimes required sacrifices. These were in the form of livestock, harvest or harvest by-products such as olive oil or wine. In the modern day, we can easily translate these tangible things into gifts of monetary value. I suspect that our latest dilemma in appropriate sacrifice has been all too common for believers this week. Lozanne and I have discussed at some length the appropriate amount to give to the aid of the people of Haiti following the disastrous earthquake last week. We have also thought carefully about which agency or agencies we should approach. Must the agency be a Christian based charity? Should our gift be one time or over time? How can we do the most good with our limited resources? Should gifts earmarked for other areas of His service be diverted to the greater physical need? We have indeed made our decision and in doing so, I have been considering carefully the words found in Micah 6:6-8.

6 ¶ With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?

What a great and loving God we have! He wants us to have mercy on others. He wants us to act justly in our treatment of others and indeed he wants us to walk humbly in His presence. The Message paraphrases the last part of verse eight as “It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously—take God seriously.”

There is great wisdom in the provision that we are not to take ourselves so seriously. We are fallible, indecisive, selfish and ever changing creatures. The key to making the proper gift decision or decisions is found in our taking God seriously and using His criteria as given to us in The Book of Micah. We are to be fair, merciful, compassionate and loyal in our love for our neighbour. In not taking ourselves so seriously, we are able to stop thinking about what we should, could or would do and just do it!

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