November 29, 2021: God Gives the Very Best of All He Has, Even His Own Son, How Do We Give to Him?

Reading a message in "Our Daily Bread" about the sacrifices of God's people and how they would bring blind, lame, and diseased to God as their offerings to Him (Malachi 1: 8-9), reminded me of how we sometimes do the same to God with our own lives.

We give to God only a part of ourselves at times and keep hold of the areas in our lives we think we can manage on our own. God wants our whole hearts, our full obedience and sacrifice to Him. Read the following in Malachi and see what God thought of His people when they did this to Him:

Malachi 1: 13b-14

“When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord.14 “Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.

At times, it can be tempting to give God our leftovers. We praise Him and expect Him to give us His all, yet we offer Him the crumbs of our lives. When we consider all God has done for us, doesn't He deserve all of us, our full and absolute surrender of ourselves to Him?

When we see the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, on the cross for us, we can rejoice in celebrating His worthiness and giving Him our best as well. Offering a defective sacrifice was a sign of disrespect...The Israelites were performing a ritual rather than honoring God from their heart.

PERSONNAL COMMENT:

Let us not perform minimal rituals to our God, let us not give only small parts of our life to Him, but let us give all of ourselves, our full heart, to Him and allow the blessings that He so richly wants to give us each day. May God help us to be fully surrendered to Him moment-by-moment and come to understand our true rest in Him.