Sacrificial Obedience

It is amazing, the detail the Lord goes into in Number 28 and 29, with respect to the specific sacrifices required by the children of Israel on certain days of the year, in accordence with observing the sabbath, in this case the sabbath of the seventh month (instead of the standards eventh day).

The only thing I've ever taken away from these passages, outside of the fact that it is rather hard to please God through sacrifice, is the idea that He takes sacrifice seriously. This is something I will have to pray about because it is really, really easy to believe I've honored God by tithing monies, time, resources, or energy, to someone I felt God was leading me to honor. And it is quite easy to think I'm honoring God simply because I'm engaged in that giving state, which often lends itself to a giving spirit.

The problem is that, if God truly is blessed by sacrifice (not more-so than obedience, but sacrifice is important), then it behooves us to make no sacrifice run-of-the-mill. There should be no apathetic, arbitrary, or accidental sacrifices. No tenative gifts, hesitantly given, cautiously provided.

If we are of the belief that a sacrifice is something God has placed in our hearts, no less a spirit of giving should follow that administration, but also a spirit of giving should be a part of our preparation TO give! Another way to phrase it is that "we should prepare for the preparation of giving!"

Here is a more physical example: Imagine God calls you to build an ark, like Noah. Yes, it is a huge blessing to be called, and yes God will provide the resources ... but Noah was chosen above his ability to be faithful in construction! Anyone, with the Lord's guidance, could probably have built that ark. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was "a just man and perfect in his generations." I don't really know what "perfect in his generations" (although I have a theory) but I am fairly certain I know what it means to be just.

In Noah's day, there were no kings, and judges weren't about yet - in fact men were doing what was right in their own eyes, so it is pretty amazing, all by itself, that there was ANYONE faithful on the Earth! But I bring up Noah, because Noah wasn't chosen because he was already a carpenter (although he might have been - knowing God's amazing ability to train people for His glory and eventual assignments, far in advance of what He has planned for them), but because he was faithful.

So, while Noah was learning how to be a boatsmith, he wasn't going to classes - he was probably spending a great deal of time in prayer. And this is what I'm focusing on - Noah's whole life, he prepared to do the work of the Lord. We don't know how faithful he was early on, but he was clearly faithful later in life, and willing and able to fulfill the Lord's plan for his life. Noah had spent years learning to be faithful in the desert of his culture, surrounded by founts of evil and overflowing souces of unrepentant peers, he chose to drink only from the well of God's fountain - and it made him strong. Strong enough that, when he was called to sacrifice his time and resources, he did so with fear, trembling, and prayer.

It doesn't reveal exactly how Noah went about his business, but as he was just, and as the adjective just is one of the descriptives of those who are counted as righteous in the Lord's will, I believe that Noah was so faithful that daily he went to the Lord and basically asked "what now?" And this kind of attitude was a blessing to them both!

This is what I'm getting at - in addition to the reality that we each are called to sacrifice specific to how the Lord has blessed us, we are also called to be just - and I believe the best way to live this out with respect to sacrifice isn't simply to sacrifice, and be done with it; but to pray, and allow the sacrifice itself be an act of reverence, to honor God with that sacrifice, and to dwell, if only a little, on what the sacrifice truly means to you.

In this way we can honor God, both in the sacrifice, and through obedient and prayerfully approaching His throne and thanking him allowing us to sacrifice in the first place.