There was no question as to what God required in sacrificial animals. They must be without spot or blemish. He expected His people to offer Him the best, the choicest from their herds and flocks.
But the Israelites were offering blind, lame and sick animals because they had no better use for them. They kept the choicest to bring the highest price in the marketplace, offering the culls and castoffs to Jehovah, saying in effect, “Anything is good enough for the Lord.”
Before we look down in shock upon the Israelites, perhaps we should ponder, as twenty-first-century Christians, what we are giving the Lord. We are encouraged to spend our lives building fortunes, living in luxury, giving our best efforts and talents to professions and recreations, while the Lord is left with a few hurried moments of our spare time in the evenings, or perhaps an hour or so on Lord’s Day.
There is tremendous pressure to raise our children to be “successful” in society and in professional careers, yet little effort or interest in encouraging them to put their best efforts into serving the Lord with the same energy and zeal we want them to use in their careers and social life.
We willingly spend much money on expensive cars, recreational and sporting equipment, costly clothing and a host of other “stuff,” setting aside the little that may be left over to give to the Lord.
In effect we are saying to the Lord that anything is good enough for Him while we retain the best for ourselves. Can we hear the Lord saying to us as He did to Israel, “Go offer that to the President (or the Queen). See if he (or she) would be pleased with it.”
God wants (and deserves) our first and our best. Later in Malachi 3:1010Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:10) He makes this promise: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” His unbounded blessing is promised to us, but He wants something from us first. Are we bringing our best into His storehouse first?
Adapted from an article