Bad Sacrifices

“It is you priests who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’ “By offering defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’ By saying that the Lord ’s Table is contemptible. When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong?

Malachi chapter one, demonstrates a principle of unacceptable sacrifice (or worship) to God. The Priests were not offering the best of their flocks for sacrifice but rather the worst. Oh yes, they were following the form of sacrifice but the substance of the sacrifice was improper.

So too sacrifice/worship today.

Prayer has been called the “sacrifice of our lips” Are our prayers more form or substance? Did we memorize a prayer when we were kids and still continue to offer that immature prayer to God on a regular basis or do our prayers reflect spiritual maturity and spiritual excellence?

Do we celebrate the Lord’s Supper in an obligatory way like making up our beds every morning or do we look forward to it as a time of reflection and a time when we can come together as a spiritual family to demonstrate the unity of love to our Holy Father?

Do we un-necessarily substitute our assembling with watching services on TV? Isn’t that a little like offering a one - eyed crippled lamb to God?

And in so many other areas.

As Christians let’s look at our flock and pick out the most excellent and very best lamb that we have to offer to God… he deserves no less and I’m not talking about sheep.