Seize the Moment – Day 807
Costly Mistakes Require a Costly Sacrifice!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, June 2.
Have you ever made a costly mistake?
King David did! He ordered a census, which took over nine months to complete (2 Samuel 24:1-9). His costly mistake brought judgment upon the nation of Israel. God confronted David and offered him three options on how that judgment would unfold and David choose pestilence because he trusted that God’s mercy would prevail in the end (2 Samuel 24:10-14). As the king, he knew that the only way to reconcile the situation and see God relent from judgment was to bear the cost himself, as seen in 2 Samuel 24:24-25, the last verses of Samuel:
However, the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Thus the Lord was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel.
This foreshadows the ministry of Jesus, and what He did for all people; Jesus bore the cost of God’s judgment for humanity’s sin upon Himself, as expressed in 1 Peter 2:24, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” Jesus, who knew no sin, took on our sin, so that we might be reconciled to God and experience His healing. In response to this great act of mercy, are you willing to make a costly sacrifice to God?
Seize the moment and “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1).