What Does Worship Cost You?

David had blundered. He wanted to gauge the strength of Israel and so had Joab count the warriors. I won't go into why this was wrong at the time, but I want to focus on what happened because of it.

In 2 Samuel 24 God gives David three choices for the consequences of his disobedience. David chooses three days of plagues saying, "Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great."

The plague is severe and takes 70,000 lives. As the angel wielding the sword of God's plague comes to Jerusalem the Lord's mercy stays his hand as David looks on. God then instructs David to build an altar to worship. The place, by the way, becomes the Temple.

At the time it is a threshing floor - a place where wheat and grain was separated from the chaff. A guy by the name of Araunah owns the place and offers to give it to David, along with the ox and wood for the sacrifice. It was a ready made deal.

But David says something very insightful. He tells Araunah, "No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing."

So here's my challenge. What does worshiping the Lord cost you? Today we have large churches with big worship bands and flashy presentations. We have CD's and mp3's and iPods that blast out worship music. We have ready made prayers and pastors who do the work of digging into the Word of God for us.

Though all those things can be good, they can also make us lazy. What personal cost is it to you to worship the Lord? What do you give up? What effort do you put into it? How much of your heart do you invest in bringing praise and adoration to the throne of God?

David refused to have worship handed to him. What about you?

Pastor Tom