Scripture Daily

Context No. 1698 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 21:23-30: in context

23Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Behold, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all.” 24King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will most certainly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is yours for the LORD, nor offer a burnt offering that costs me nothing.” 25So David gave to Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. 26David built an altar to the LORD there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on the LORD; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering. 27Then the LORD commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath. 28At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29For the LORD’s tabernacle, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30But David couldn’t go before it to inquire of God, for he was afraid because of the sword of the LORD’s angel.

David has been told to build an altar on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Ornan generously offers to give it all, the land, the oxen for sacrifice, the wood, the wheat, freely. But David refuses. No, he says, I will pay the full price; I will not take for the LORD what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing. So he pays six hundred shekels of gold, builds the altar, and offers his sacrifices; and God answers him with fire from heaven.

David's words go to the heart of what it means to give to God: I will not offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing. He could have accepted Ornan's generous gift and made his offering for free; but he saw that an offering that costs the giver nothing is not really an offering at all. To give God only what is free, convenient, left over, costs us nothing and therefore means little; true devotion gives something that is felt, that represents real sacrifice on our part. So David insisted on paying full price, that his offering might genuinely be his, and genuinely cost him. There is a searching question here about our own giving to God, of our money, our time, our energy, our lives. Is it the costless kind, the leftover time, the spare change, the effort that costs us nothing to give? Or does it cost us something, as a real offering should? It is easy to offer God what we will not miss, the convenient, the surplus, the free; and such giving, while not worthless, is not the sacrifice David understood. What we truly value, we give at real cost; the offering that means something is the one that is felt. This is not because God needs our gold, but because the cost is the measure of the devotion. To give God only the costless is to reveal that he ranks below whatever we are unwilling to spend on him. David would not do it; he paid the full price, refusing to offer God what cost him nothing, and God answered his costly altar with fire.

When I give to God, of my money, my time, my energy, is it the costless kind, the leftover and the convenient that I will not miss, or does it cost me something real, as David refused to offer what cost him nothing, knowing that the cost is the measure of the devotion?

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