Sacrifice

This week has started of really great with Wayne and Libby from the old parachute band. A lot of what they have been talking about is extravagant and costly worship and that has been a real challenge for me. I want to write a little about this from some of the notes that ive taken. So often we can worship God with such an indifferent attitude or we let what we feel/are going through get in the way of what worship is all about which is giving God, the Creator of all what he deserves, which is our unconditional worship. Our first priority in worship is to prepare a feast for God. So this is where the cost factor comes in..would we give something to God that has cost us nothing? Worship is about what comes from the heart.
Some questions...
What value do you place on your worship and how expensive is it to you?
How often do we borrow someone elses worship or offer convenient worship?
How much is your worship costing you right now?
challenging stuff aye..
An example of extravagant worship is Mary in the Bible who poured out the expensive perfume over Jesus. The perfume was her dowry and future yet she chose to worship Jesus about all that. That was her sacrifice. She moved the heart of Jesus with her extravagant worship and we all have the ability to do the same.
Im still thinking through what is costly to me because for me worshipping and singing is easy and in fact i really love it , but it could be in those moments when you least feel like worshipping, when you're tired, or going through trials or a wilderness time when you just choose to say "God even though im not really feeling like worshipping you right now, i choose to and im going to worship you with everything within me". Those can be some of the most powerful times of worship...and it doesn't necessarily have to be during a worship/singing time, because worship is a lifestyle right? it could be something like fasting or giving to a stranger.
In Samuel, after David has gone against God and taken the census and the whole country is afflicted with a plague, David goes to make an offering to God. He wants to buy a field off a man to do this offering and the man says he will give him the field and the materials to make the sacrifice and David says to him (2nd Samuel 24:24) "No i insist on buying it, for i cannot present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing." wow David understood what extravagant worship was. Costly worship is building something for the future. When we look in the Bible when Solomon was building the temple we see the he built the temple in the same field that David made that sacrifice to God.
How expensive is your worship right now?