After His Own Heart

I Chronicles 21:21–26

“Then David approached, and when Araunah looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground. David said to him, “Let me have the site of your threshing floor so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the plague on the people may be stopped. Sell it to me at the full price.” Araunah said to David, “Take it! Let my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this.” But King David replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.” So David paid Araunah six hundred shekels of gold for the site. David built an altar to the LORD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the LORD, and the LORD answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.”

An offering that costs is David’s resolution in assuaging God’s wrath because Israel’s king did not trust in the King of Kings. We are also encouraged to “bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in the house of God.” “Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure (Mal 3:10).” God deserves our very best, and often giving our best entails sacrifices and that is one measure of the genuineness of our offering. David said “I will not sacrifice to the LORD a burnt offering that costs me nothing (v. 24)”, no wonder that despite his failings and weaknesses, God considers David, “a man after My own heart” (I Sam 13:24, Acts 13:22), it is because He really repented and oerhaps overall, he never squandered God’s grace. God is generous and His grace springs forth from His loving heart, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things (Rom 8:32).” And so we can trust that when we further His Kingdom on Earth by giving sacrificially like He did, we are giving our Father great pleasure. And this also comes in many forms not just in allocating a percentage of our resources to the Christian community but also in our way of life, our service, and generosity in our relationships, the LORD taught us when He said “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you”, in the same breath He reminded us “do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:38), generosity finds expression in graciousness too. May we be like Him, may we love like Christ, may we pursue faithfulness in every aspect of our lives, and by His Spirit, we will gain holiness.