SACRIFICE & HEALING
We read in the latter part of the final chapter of second Samuel the prophet Gad had instructed David to go and offer a sacrifice to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah. 70,000 Israelites had died in the plague. In obedience David went to Araunah and offered to purchase his threshing floor.
Araunah said to David ‘there is no cost take whatever you want’ indeed he went further and said ‘here are the oxen and the wood required for the sacrifice.’ David made it clear to him that he would not sacrifice to the Lord that which cost him nothing. So David bought the entire threshing floor and the oxen and paid Araunah the going rate for this. David then built an altar there and sacrificed the oxen he had purchased on this altar. The Bible says “the Lord answered prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped (1 Sam 24:25 NIV).
Despite being offered a gift by the landowner, David wasn’t prepared to make a sacrifice to the Lord without it costing him something. Too often, I believe we want a quick fix or a quick answer for which there is no cost on our part.
How often do we ask God to fix something in our life, no matter how big or small and expect Him to perform a miracle for us without the least bit of effort on our part? Have you ever asked the Lord to take away your anger, pride, selfishness, jealousy, bitterness or greed but not been prepared to make the necessary adjustments to attitude or behaviour patterns in order to cooperate with Him? He’s always willing to do His part if we are willing to do ours.
In this story in the book of Samuel, we see the plague was stopped, in other words healing came to the entire nation of Israel once David had made a costly sacrifice to the Lord. Now clearly in our time we don’t have to offer up sacrifices of oxen, sheep or goats. However, I do believe there must be cost to our sacrifice in order for the healing to come to the issues previously mentioned. The Bible say to gain our life we must lose it (Matthew 16:24-25). The way up in the kingdom of God is down. In other words we must humble ourselves before the Lord will raise us up (1 Peter 5:6).
One writer has said unless we experience some sacrifice, we haven’t truly given. So when we make an offering to God or ask Him to ‘fix’ those parts of our life that perhaps are unholy, hurtful to others and ‘anti-Christ’ i.e. against His best for us there simply must be a cost to us. We must be prepared to offer up (surrender) these things to Him and then watch and see what He will do with our sacrifice.