An 8-day devotional
Sacrificial Worship
‘But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.” So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.‘
(2 Samuel 24:24 NLT)
Today, on our final day of this ‘Authentic Worship’ devotional, I would love to broach the topic of sacrificial worship.
This, to me, is where the rubber really hits the road.
Worshipping the Lord when things in our lives are calm, steady and going well is relatively straight forward. We turn up to church, or we set aside time in the secret place at home, and we lift up our song of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord for all the good days He is bringing into our lives.
When things get tricky is when life gets…well… tricky.
Friends, I have been witness recently to a profound time of sacrificial worship.
I won’t go into the details of the circumstances, they are not mine to tell, but suffice it to say two individuals and friends in my local church are going through a season of significant and unimaginable loss and grief.
As the worship music kicked up on their first Sunday back in church since the events of their loss, I was floored by their response in worship.
These faith-filled, faithful saints jumped and praised with all of their might as they sang to our God. Even in the midst of great trial and pain, they did not consider it too much to praise God for who He still is and who He still is to them.
This display of worship would have cost them a lot. I doubt that they felt like jumping and singing to the Lord as they navigated their pain. But they did it anyway.
Why?
Because they know that God is still God and God is still good.
Friends, as we close this devotional, may I encourage you, in the inevitably difficult days that may come in the future, not to let life steal your praise.
You are not expected to be fake or to perform for the eyes of others, but know that your sacrificial praise means a whole lot to our King.
Just as King David confessed with his mouth that he would not offer the Lord that which had cost him nothing, may we adopt the same heart and bring a sacrifice of ourselves to the altar every single day.
May we worship in the good times and the hard.
God bless you.
Father God,
As we close this devotional about authentic worship, I pray that you will continue to reveal to us what it means to worship you in authenticity, spirit and truth.
Let these 8 days be the beginning of a conversation that we have with you and our fellow brothers and sisters whereby we unpick and unpack what it means to honour your name with the worship that we bring.
We worship and adore you Lord, forevermore.
In Jesus name,
Amen.
Photo by DAVID NIETO on Unsplash
Living The Jesus Life 