Since we both got home from our trips, B and I have been reading together before bed and I forgot how much I loooove it! As a kid, the only reason I would stay up late was for a good book and the creative juices that I had to take advantage of that only seem fluid after 11 p.m. I realized all over again last night how careful I have to be about stopping my writing and reading when I get started at night, because I know I could go well past midnight. haha Leave it to the pen to make me a night owl. I guess I really am a creative after all. 😉
I’ve been reading Elliot’s Love Has a Price Tag. It’s just a random collection of her essays from the newsletters she used to publish. I read one on different types of sacrifices which really got me thinking about our good and bad days as parents.
Ezra 6:9-10 says, “And whatever is needed – bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require – let that be given to them day by day without fail, that they may offer sacrifices to the God of heaven…”
Jesus Himself is the sufficient sacrifice given for us daily. This is why there’s no more need for rams and bulls because Jesus is enough. Revelation 5:6 says, “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain…” That phrase, as though is had been slain, could also be said as, now in the act of being offered. This is hopeful for us, sinners who constantly need forgivenes! Jesus’ sacrifice is so sufficient for us that His grace daily covers our sins and needs.
This great covering that we have found in Christ should stir in us a desire. I believe Romans 12:1 captures the response our hearts should have to Christ’s love for us well when it says, “…present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [or rational] worship.” This simply makes sense, it’s rational to present our lives to Christ, since He gave His for us.
God wants us to give ourselves, our hearts, intentions, plans, and days to Him, and He wants us to do this every single day! Jesus has made provision for our sins daily through the cross, so we, logically, must turn our days over to him as an offering.
Hebrews 13:15 talks about the sacrifice of praise. On the effortless days it’s easy to offer ourselves and things as offerings and sacrifices to the Lord – like the days where I’m following closely behind my husband and little boy on our bicycles, enjoying an evening off riding through grassy fields of green, thinking about nothing else but getting back to the car for a cool drink of water and maybe some ice cream. Of course it’s easy to thank the Lord and offer what He’s provided us right back to Him.
But God still wants our offerings on the hard days.
I usually look at the exhausting days of mothering that are filled with unexpected turns as wasted days. I can’t offer this to the Lord. That’s ridiculous! It’s full of too many flaws and unanticipated issues! I categorize that as things we just have to get through until we get to the days where we really do God’s work in response to His gospel. I view the unanticipated visits to the hospital, long nights full of screaming, teething kids, and tired eyes that can’t seem to get off the couch not as work, but as waste. Teaching Bible studies and watching kids in the nursery at church is where the acceptable sacrifices are!
Wrong.
Isaiah 64:4 tells us that even our righteous deeds are as flithly rags before the Lord. The truth is that I can’t come up with an offering acceptable to the Lord. That’s why I need Jesus in the first place! So, what do I do on those downright sucky days where I hate life? (Just being honest here…)
It’s not about what I can or can’t give to God daily. It’s about what He gave to us, in Jesus, so we can offer Him our brokeness and mess. Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart…” There’s never a day where Jesus’ sacrifice isn’t enough, and there is never a day where God, in His grace, doesn’t provide something for us to offer back to Him in thanksgiving, even if it’s simply our brokeness and trust. Why does He want our dirty, unacceptable offering? Because He alone can turn them into good things through His blood and the power of His Holy Spirit! He turns water in to wine. He makes the blind see. He turns weakness into power. He just wants us to present our weaknesses.
I used to think that even in really, really terrible circumstances I simpy had to find the grain of goodness to be thankful for. “Well, my car broke down, it’s 104 degrees out, and we have no money in the bank…but I’m still breathing! Praise Him!” How fake is that? That is not at all a clear representation of where my heart really is, and Christ hates a lying tongue (Proverbs 6:17), so how dare I offer that falsehood to Him!
After meditating on this verse from the Psalms yesterday, I realized I was going at those bad days in the wrong way. I thought I had to be fake with the Lord and offer Him something with a forced smile, but that’s not the case. God knows. We can’t fool Him. It’s ridiculous to think we can! But, He wants our brokeness. He wants our pain. He desires for us to offer Him our heartache. We can’t hide them from Him, but we can offer them to Him and watch His sufficient power work through weakness.
Christ wants to be first in every area of our lives, even the scary, painful, embarrassing, old, bad parts, because He’s in the business of making all things new.
In Christ
In the Marginalia 