So the brunette koala has got me thinking about what we put into, and get out of, a relationship with God. Like her, I’ve had the very difficult experience of being somewhere that you feel God wants you to be in but feeling like you’re in a bit of a desert place as a result.
After mulling over her post yesterday I was sat reading my bible using a book of accompanying studynotes last night. And as so often happens when you think you’ve got your thoughts all sorted on a subject (ha!) I found myself reading a passage that reminded me of an inconvenient truth:
2 Samuel 24:18-25 (New International Version)
David Builds an Altar
18 On that day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up, as the LORD had commanded through Gad. 20 When Araunah looked and saw the king and his men coming toward him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. 21 Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”
”To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the plague on the people may be stopped.”22 Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 O king, Araunah gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the LORD your God accept you.”
24 But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. 25 David built an altar to the LORD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the LORD answered prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped. (courtesy of www.biblegateway.com)
“I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” is the key verse here. I must have read this passage before, but never really taken this in. I’ve been using a book of ‘experiential devotionals’ called “God360″ by Andy Flannagan and in last night’s reading this is the verse he homed in on. He asks “How many of my ‘offerings’ of worship cost me very little at all? ” He then goes on to make a simple and practical challenge. To choose to do some act of worship for God which has a real cost – to your comfort, to your schedule, to your self-respect, or even your credibility. It made me think of the woman who poured the expensive perfume over Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, leaving the disciples indignant at the apparently pointless extravagance of the gesture.
So I’m challenged. To make beautiful, terrifying, creative, counter-intuitive expressions of worship, of praise, of thanksgiving to God. And to recognise that they are sacrifices, which I am to offer freely and with an open heart.
I’ll be the one reading the biggest bible I can find on the bus. Or the one saying grace out loud when we’re in a restaurant. Or the one determinedly worshipping God through the longest and most impenetrable hymn. Or maybe the one dancing in the aisles. Or maybe the one sitting in silence and solitary prayer in some coffee shop.
Or maybe just the one who is praying desperately for courage to be like David and Abraham and all those many others in the history of our faith who have laid down themselves, their possessions and their pride at the feet of our Father and been content to let Him take whatever He wanted, because they loved Him.
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August 7, 2008 at 10:26 pm
thestatethatiamin
Man, you two have gotten me thinking….
It’s so often said that worship is not about what we get out of it, but still when we hear the word “worship” I for one instantly think of music – even though I know that it is just a tiny bit of what worship is about.
Yup, I really struggled for years in the church we still belong to. We lived on the other side of town and wondered if we still connected with the church community. Yet, there was lots that was great about church and lots to keep us there. I found the music a real hindrence for years. I felt disconnected by it and often at odds with some decisions made in church meetings. Weird, huh?
I remember one Sunday morning driving across town and listening to a Delirious song which had the line, “We’re going to the house of God, we’re going to the house of God – are you coming? – You couldn’t keep me away! Yeah!” and thinking, “Boy, I wish I could think like that, cause it’s not how I feel atall…”
Negativity is easy to adopt and it breeds and spreads and grows roots like weeds. The church I still call home is the same one I wrote those previous paragraphs about. It is unrecognisable now. That brings its own issues, but I am so glad we stuck it out cause I couldn’t imagine life without the teaching and community we have at those gatherings and through our small group and friends.
What does worship cost? Karl used a phrase last year that stuck with me, “Salvation is free, but it will cost us everything”. Do I really know what that means? Do I really want to?
August 8, 2008 at 12:07 am
brunettekoala
Wow. This post is sooo encouraging. Although difficult to read at the same time, when you think ‘man, I’ve got to apply this in real life’…
Every time God prompts me into something ‘crazy’ my automatic response is… ‘Do I really have to?’
I miss going to church in the mornings…!
August 8, 2008 at 10:55 pm
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August 9, 2008 at 7:29 am
duncanmcf
What if the actual cost is actually the crucifixion? So there has been a cost, you just didn’t personaly bear it? So maybe this is a pre Jesus on earth, post Jesus on earth comparison? And so that sacrificial cost of worship is not relevant anymore? Don’t know, just floating a thought.
August 9, 2008 at 7:32 pm
brunettekoala
If our worship is to be an offering, should it not cost something. Just thinking about the woman who gave all she had compared with the richer person that gave more monetary value, but it did not cost him as much and Jesus’ comments on it…
August 9, 2008 at 11:03 pm
thestatethatiamin
Do we really recognise the cost borne on the cross? Do we really personalise it? So, yes, I have to agree with Duncan – the price has been paid.
But, didn’t Jesus also say that those who follow Him, should pick up their cross? Now, there’s a concept we like to shy away from in worship songs…or something it can be easy to sing, but a lot more difficult to really apply.
Surely a life of worship should cost us everything. We lay aside our plans, hopes and dreams and come to God with a blank sheet of paper and start again recognising all our hope is ultimately in Him and asking for new dreams. So I also have to agree with BK.
Have I learnt how to really worship or have I just learned how to sing about it?
August 9, 2008 at 11:36 pm
brunettekoala
“Have I learnt how to really worship or have I just learned how to sing about it”
That is the challenge.
And I think that’s how we were challenged and encouraged as we read ‘The Irresisitible Revolution’ last year.
A part that always stuck out to me of that book was a passage Shane entitled ‘Jesus wrecked my life’ when he talked about being the Prom King, the popular kid…and yet when he started to ‘pick his cross and follow jesus’ everything got more costly, more difficult…
I think Duncan’s point is an interesting one…yes the price for our sinful lives has been paid. But what are we giving back in return to say ‘Thank you’….?
August 10, 2008 at 8:44 pm
bringonthejoy
Thanks for these incredibly thought provoking comments guys. I have nothing profound or insightful to add I’m afraid, but I’m overjoyed to have been part of this conversation. Long may it continue as we each try to figure out just what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Might I just add one more thought (bearing in mind I’ve already made clear I’ve nothing profound or insightful to say, caveat, caveat…). Even though it was a ‘pre-Jesus, pre-redemption’ act, David was not required by God to pay for the threshing floor he bought and built the altar for sacrifices on. It was offered to him as a gift from a loving and loyal subject. But David actually chose to do the thing that would cost him more, because he wanted to demonstrate to God his love and commitment. He saw that an act of worship which did not cost him anything was not going to do that.
So even though Jesus has paid the price, we are still called as followers of Jesus to lay down our lives. For some that will be the literal cost of losing their lives for the sake of Jesus. For others at other times it will be the day to day cost of honouring and loving God by choosing to go against the tide of popular opinion or behaviour and in the direction of that which brings God joy.
We have a choice of course. And someone has famously said that the problem with living sacrifices (like us) is that they can get up and walk off the altar. I am not comfortable with the idea of being a sacrifice. But I suppose that’s a defining feature of it!
August 10, 2008 at 11:16 pm
brunettekoala
I think that is very insightful!