This story is so cool, and it is so convicting if you actually sit with it. The Bible is supposed to convict, but so often we just want to skim through to feel good, not actually sitting with the hard.
David is told to go up and build an altar to the Lord. He is told exactly where. So he heads up to this threshing floor that belongs to a man named Araunah.
Araunah sees David coming and bows down. David tells him I need to buy this place from you. I have to build an altar here so this plague will stop.
And Araunah says just take it. It is yours. Take the threshing floor. Take the oxen for the sacrifice. Take the wood. I will give all of it to you.
I love picturing this moment.
Maybe Araunah was begging him a little. Please. If this will stop the plague, take it. I will give it to you.
Maybe he was scared. Maybe he was generous. Maybe both.
And David says no.
I will not take what is yours and give it to the Lord. I will not present burnt offerings that have cost me nothing.
He insisted on paying full price.
He was the king. He could have taken it. The man was already offering it. And David said no. Because something in him knew that an offering that did not cost him anything was not really an offering at all.
I think about this so often when I walk into church.
How easy it is to want to worship in a way that costs me nothing.
How easy it is to live out a faith that does not actually require anything of me.
I will sing the songs but not surrender the thing God has been asking me to surrender.
I will say I love God on Sunday but not speak His name out loud at work on Monday.
I will not even pray over a meal at a restaurant.
Maybe that is where you are too.
We try so hard to live a faith that costs us nothing. And I think that is exactly what Jesus was talking about when He said the road is narrow.
The narrow road costs you something.
Your comfort. Your image. Your time. Your money. Your reputation. Your plans. Something.
If your faith has never cost you anything, it might be worth asking why.
David understood it. He looked at a free altar, a free sacrifice, a free piece of land, and he said no. Not because it was a bad deal. Because his God deserved more than something free.
The God who had shown him mercy was not going to get a leftover offering.
That convicts me.
Because I want my worship to cost me something.
I want my faith to look like something other people can see is real.
I want to be a person who does not just sing about surrender, but actually lays things down.
Not because God needs my sacrifice. But because love that costs nothing is not really love.