1 Samuel 6:3 3 They answered, “If you return the ark of the god of Israel, do not send it away empty, but by all means send a guilt offering to him. Then you will be healed, and you will know why his hand has not been lifted from you.” NIV
Whatever you do, offer Israel’s God something that will mean something to Him! We may not be His followers but we know what gods can do and we know what this One did to Egypt and the early peoples of Canaan – this God means business!
You know, you can only stand so much devastation and chaos and the Philistines had had, after about seven months, about enough. They wanted to get rid of the lost Ark because as raiders of it, they we paying a heavy price to keep it around. (Today, at the store, we waited on a customer who made a $1,000+ purchase – but what we had to go through to help this person might not have been worth the sale! Some customers…)
The Philistines hadn’t figured on a real Deity – they were used to theirs and theirs were just like all the rest, idols made of wood and stone that really didn’t do anything. So when they bumped into God, they knew there was something different going on; and tens of thousands of dead people from the plagues and the tumors. And they remembered history and what happened when Israel’s God was offended by the Egyptians. They were smart enough to know that messing around with this God meant big trouble, so whatever else they thought to do, they thought to apologize, and make an offering admitting their guilt for taking something that wasn’t theirs.
God isn’t interested in the blood of bulls and goats; God isn’t interested in our money or our talents – what God is interested in is the heart, and how each one of ours individually relates to Him. There is no offering we can give that out-gives God or the Sacrifice He gave us in Christ. But, we can be honest with Him; we can give Him our undiluted devotion; and we can give Him our unquestioning obedience. I guess if we feel like we have to give God something that matters, we could start with those things…
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