Are Your Offerings Worthy?

Malachi 1:6-10
⁶“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty. “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.”

But you ask, “How have we shown contempt for your name?”

⁷“You place defiled food on my altar.”
But you ask, “How have we defiled you?”

“By saying that the LORD’s table is contemptible. ⁸When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled 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.

⁹“Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?” says the LORD Almighty.

¹⁰“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the LORD Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.”

This passage seems to keep coming up recently… in the sermons at church the last couple Sundays… in the radio messages I’ve listened to this week… stuck in my head too. Think God’s laying something on my heart?

Yeah, me too.

But what? How is a message from Malachi to the Levitical priests about sacrifices and offerings relevant to today’s Christians?

Offerings.

What would God say of your offerings to Him? Would God tell you that you show contempt for His name by the offerings you bring? Would God tell you that your offerings defile His altar? Or worst of all… would He tell you that He’d rather see you close the temple doors and offer nothing instead of the useless things you currently bring?

But what do we offer?

Paul helps us with that:

Romans 12:1-2
¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. ²Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Your life is your offering to God.

Is it a worthy offering?