FAITH CAPSULE: Every way of seeking God demands commitment.

2 Samuel 24

Worshipping God is rooted in the fear of God. To fear God is to love God; to love God is to adore Him and he that adores God will reverence Him. Any man that truly loves God will devote to serving God. Ones who truly serve God carries no iota of worrying and that is why worship is opposite of worry. Jesus admonishes us, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” (Matthew 6:25-27) Is worrying your passion? Worry does not have a place in worship because what worry does is to replace God with needs or concern instead of placing needs and concerns before God. Obviously, any soul that is occupied with worrying can never engage in true worship.
Worshipping God can be likened to a tree whose branches are: obedient to the commands of God, praise, praying, fasting, and giving offering. Branches of worship are the ways of seeking God. Every way of seeking God demands commitment. Commitment is not convenient and it can always be inconvenient.  It is the cost of inconvenience that counts to make worship become a sacrifice before God. The pain of cost is the gain that comes when God commits to the cause of worship. In the story of David’s census which provoked the anger of God against Israel, we see what it means to give a costly sacrifice in worship unto God. David conducted census against the will of God and the census caused God to send down plague. The consequence of the census demanded a sacrifice which made Araunah to offer David a free threshing floor to build an altar to the Lord that the plague could be withdrawn. David rejected the free offer stating, “…No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.” (2 Samuel 24:24) Is your sacrificial offering (worship) reasonable enough to be accepted by God? The story about David’s censor gives the picture about what it means to give a costly sacrifice to provoke a priceless response from God. Worship is costly. The pain of the cost is the gain that comes with God’s commitment to the course of worship.

Prayer for today: Ask God to direct you into a reasonable sacrifice.