The Higher Sacrifices

Malachi is a touching book that really shows the LORD's heart. He opens by introducing himself as LORD or YHWH, his personal name, and explaining that he loves his people. His priorities are first and foremost of reestablishing a love-relationship that Israel had left. In the next paragraph he appeals to the other (same?) side of his character by introducing himself as LORD of hosts (ESV). This name is a little more scary and holds a different kind of authority than YHWH alone, so we get the idea, aside from the obvious rebuke in the text that he is not pleased.

Acadamia aside, this book touched me on many levels, the biggest being the area of sacrifice for the LORD. In thinking upon the "application" of the book, I began to think about where I sacrifice for the LORD, or, rather, where I don't. My first thought was "What ought I give up for the LORD that is getting in the way of my relationship with him?"

After trying to semi-successfully find a suitable and moving answer, I realized I was asking the wrong question. I don't think the OT idea of sacrifice has much to do with giving up things you ought not have or habits you should stay away from. Instead, sacrifice invlolves giving up things that are actually good and right. My idea of sacrifice has been backwards, and I believe Evangelical Christianity may fall into the same trap. God is not asking for us to give up our worst so much as he is asking us to give him our best. This was a fundamental shift for me and quite the change of paradigm.

Os Guiness' book A Time For Truth looks at this conceptual distinction in a different light. In the realm of freedoms, Os says that there are two kinds - lower and higher freedoms. The "lower" freedoms are those things that we ought to be free from: murder, theft, racial/gender/religious persecution, etc. The higher freedoms are things we are free to: serving, loving, praising, helping, saving, choosing, etc. It is in this last category where I see the OT idea of sacrifice residing. I suppose sacrificing could belong in both realms, with the LORD preferring the latter, but I think the former category is where so many of us get hung up. The lower form of sacrificing, giving up a vice or not being a jerk to one's mate/friend is necessary and good, but it only sets the stage for the higher form of sacrifice.

What a shame that I(we) as a Christian and human in general get so focused on what I ought to stop doing or start doing to please the LORD that I never ponder how I can show my love to him even more by giving him my best, the most valuable, and thereby showing him that(if) I think he surpasses those. In all reality, the "if" is more accurate at this point. There are things I value more than God and would not want to give them up. I don't know if I should give them up wholesale or instead realize that I need to pursue the LORD further to see him as more valuable. Intellectually, he is obviously more valuable, but the problem is that my heart loves other things more.

George MacDonald puts it this way: "He looked around upon his congregation and trembling a little with a new excitement, he began, 'My hearers, I come before you this morning to say the first word of truth ever given me to utter. In my room, three days ago,' the curate went on, 'I was reading the strange story of a man who appeared in Palestine saying that he was the Son of God. And I came upon those words of his which I have just read to you. All at once my conscience awoke and asked me, 'Do you do the things he says to you?' And I thought to myself, 'Have I today done a single thing he said to me? When was the last time I did something I heard from him? Did I ever in all my life do one thing because he said to me, 'Do this?' 'And the answer was, 'No, never.'...He then proceeded to show that faith and obedience are one and the same spirit: what in the heart we call faith, in the will we call obedience. He showed that the Lord refused the so-called faith which found its vent at the lips in worshiping words and not at the limbs in obedient action. Some of his listeners immediately pronounced his notions bad theology, while others said to themselves that at least it was common sense" (35) Macdonald, George. Knowing the Heart of God: Where Obedience is the One Path to Drawing Intimately Close to Our Father. ed. Michael R. Phillips. Bethany House, Minneapolis: 1990.

I like how George makes it plain why we would obey (or, in my context, sacrifice. Or, in Guiness' context, practice the higher form of obedience). We obey or sacrifice live free or move or breathe because he said to. The heart of sacrifice, obedience and living free is a heart that is moved by the Lord. I long to move away from simply giving up to giving unto.