Isn’t it nice when worship happens to fit comfortably with our busy schedules and comfortable lifestyles? When giving ourselves up as living sacrifices to God turns out not to be that bad of a burden? Whether we realize it or not, we all tend to make the mistake of distilling our obedience to God down to whatever happens to be convenient. Worship often doesn’t really cost us much.
But this actually deprives us of wonderful opportunities for things greater than the things we hold on to! Our priorities get misaligned, and we end up convincing ourselves that we can’t sacrifice this or that, it’s too good or important in our lives. But we forget that the best that there is for us is to have nothing but our God. As Psalm 84 says, it’s better to have nothing in the house of the Lord than to have everything elsewhere. David recognized this and, even when he had the opportunity to get a free pass, turned it down. He wanted his sacrifice to the Lord to actually be a sacrifice. He decided he would not give to the Lord what cost him nothing; he couldn’t if he truly loved his God.
To love God and worship him means to ascribe worth to him. If we love him, we know that he is worth everything and infinitely more. He is worth the sacrifice of our conveniences or prized possessions or even invaluable time. And if we love him, we will be ecstatic about the opportunity to give it all to him. No cost is too great for the privilege of worshiping him and living entirely to love him.
We should all take honest stock of our life priorities. They will be the things that end up getting our time and effort and resources. Those may be extremely costly to give up. But to worship is to be willing to take on those costs. Remember David insisting on giving something that cost him; or the poor woman giving the temple her last two pennies; or the disciples giving themselves up for a life of persecution; or better yet, our Father in Heaven giving us his own beloved Son because of how much he loved us. Love holds back nothing—the Father himself demonstrated that—so let us hold back nothing in loving the Father.
