When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty. – Malachi 1:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 4, 2017): Malachi 1

A true gift cost’s something to the one who gives it. Regifting, taking something that has been given to us and giving it to someone else is not really gift giving because the gift didn’t cost us anything and, as evidenced by our willingness to give it away, we don’t want the gift in the first place. Maybe the practice is the equivalent of leaving an old T.V. on the sidewalk outside our house with a large printed label that says free. The actual gift giver might be the one who carries the T.V. away, saving us a trip to the local eco-center.

This principle is at the heart of the story about David attempting to buy a threshing floor so that he can build an altar to make a sacrifice to God. The owner of the threshing floor, a man named Araunah, offers both the threshing floor and the oxen that could be sacrificed to David for free (as a gift) so that David can make his sacrifice to God (maybe we can call that regifting). But David’s response is clear. “The king replied to Araunah, ‘No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing’” (2 Samuel 24:24).

The story of David and Araunah echoes the complaint that Micah holds against the priests. By offering as sacrifices defective animals, they were actually giving to God things that were worthless to them. They had no use for the animals; therefore there was no value in them. These animals were the old T.V.’s left by road with a note begging somebody to pick them up and save the owner a trip to the dump. And because there was no value, there was also no gift – and no sacrifice.

What we give to God should cost us something. Maybe not only should it cost us something, but the cost should make us feel uncomfortable. If it doesn’t cost, then it is not the gift that God is searching for from us. After all, he gave all that he had so that we might live. A small offering back to him is more of a bargain on our part than an actual recognition of all that God has given to us as a true gift – one which cost him a very high price.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Malachi 2