The Wading Pool

“But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.”

The reference is to the offering of the firstborn that was to be given to the Lord. It was to be the best of the best, the “top choice” of your flocks. The idea was that God, who had blessed you, was to be given back the firstborn as a way of thanks and to honor Him.

Today, thanks to Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice on the cross, we are no longer required to take the firstborn of our flocks and offer it to God. Which is a good thing, considering the only beast I have is that crazy mutt Rusty. But the principle still stands, and it stands in a big way. And as I thought about it tonight, one huge area jumped out at me: time.

Think about it. It’s our most precious commodity. We all have a finite amount of it, and we’re all running out of it at the rate of 24 hours per day. It’s here and gone, and you can’t get it back no matter how hard you try.

So let’s apply the principle of firsts to time.

Are you giving God the best of it? Are you giving Him second best? Are you even giving Him any at all?

Now I know we all have jobs to do. We have to live and provide for our family. But you know what I’m getting at here. We get up, we go to work. We might read the paper…ooops! I mean the Internet news sites! We come home, play with the kids, eat dinner, put the kids to bed, then go glue ourselves to the idiot boxes (TV and computer alike) for the remainder of the night.

Maybe, if He’s lucky, we’ll give God 5 minutes before turning in.

If you were to take stock of your life right now, what one thing takes up the most of your time? What thing do you think about above all else. Friend, I hate to tell you, but that’s your god. And mine. Isaiah has stern words for us:

“They are turned back and utterly put to shame who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.'” (Isaiah 42:16)

We may not be physically bowing down to a carved image, but I guarantee the issue of the heart is the same. And it doesn’t take a very in depth reading of the Old Testament and New to realize that God hates idolatry. He is a jealous God that will not share His love with another.

So let’s cast down our idols, crush them, burn them, grind them into bits. And lets give the One Who is worthy all our worship! Amen?