A Brief Devotional for Offering
However, there are times when we're caught off guard,
needing a gift for someone we forgot, or maybe someone unexpectedly gives us a
gift and we feel the need to reciprocate. This is the perfect scenario for the
famous art of regifting.
Have you ever done that? You receive a gift you didn't much
like, so you stash it away for just a time like this. You run to the closet,
pull it off the shelf, wrap it hastily or throw it into a gift bag, and
voilà—you have a gift.
But here's the thing: you never tell the recipient,
"Hey, I just regifted something I didn't want!" Why not? Because part
of gift-giving is the planning, the thoughtfulness, the sacrifice you made. All
those things communicate, along with the gift itself, that you truly love that
person.
So which scenario better describes your giving to the Lord?
Have you planned it out? Have you made some level of
sacrifice to bring this gift to God? Are you excited to give to God?
Or do you just run to the closet and see what's left over?
When you give, does it feel like just an obligation—something to check off the
list?
Is your giving thoughtful and planned? Or just what's left
over?
Listen to this story from 2 Samuel 24. The people were
experiencing a plague, and God told David to build an altar and make a
sacrifice to end it. God sent him to buy a threshing floor from a man named
Araunah.
When David arrived, Araunah offered to give him everything
for free—the land, the ox, the wood. David could have taken the easy path.
But listen to his response:
"No. I've got to buy it from you for a good price;
I'm not going to offer GOD, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice."
(2 Samuel 24:24)
"I'm not going to offer God sacrifices that are no
sacrifice."
David refused to give God something that cost him nothing.
He understood that true worship involves sacrifice—something of ourselves.
So David bought the threshing floor and the ox, paying
out fifty shekels of silver. He built an altar to GOD there and sacrificed
burnt offerings and peace offerings. GOD was moved by the prayers and that was
the end of the disaster.
Notice: God was moved. Not because David gave
something, but because David gave something that truly cost him.
As we give today, let's ask ourselves:
- Does
my gift to God reflect thoughtfulness and planning, or is it just
whatever's left over?
- Does
my gift involve sacrifice, or am I only giving from my abundance?
- Does
my gift communicate to God how much I truly appreciate everything He has
done for me?
Let's not offer God sacrifices that are no sacrifice. Let's
give with joy, with intention, and with hearts full of gratitude for the
greatest gift ever given—Jesus Christ, God's own Son.
[Prayer before the offering]
Let's pray: Father, as we bring our tithes and offerings
to you today, help us to give not out of obligation, but out of love. Help us
to give not just what's easy, but what truly costs us something. Thank you for
your extravagant gift to us in Jesus. May our giving reflect even a fraction of
that generosity. In Jesus' name, Amen.
