One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is in 2 Samuel 24. My reading plan landed me here today. After David’s sin brings horrific consequences, God relents. David repents but not just with words, which many believe is enough. Repentance cost! It’s humiliating! It puts us in the right perspective about ourselves juxtaposed with a HOLY GOD.
David wants to sacrifice to God in complete contrition and brokenness. He looks to buy a piece of property, I could go on about this piece of property and its historical and future placement in God’s Word, but that would be to digress.
Anywho, Araunah, the owner, offers it to The King for free. Well, of course, because David is King. But, in true brokenness, David doesn’t take it, which he could have. He understands repentance costs something. He says, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.”
Those words have been the most impactful in understanding salvation. While God made the offer free in that he provided the way and paid the price. We need to believe. Believing cost us something. Faith is NOT work. It’s not simply a mental assent either, and then life costs you nothing. You trade one loyalty from the world, the kingdom of darkness to which you’ve been a slave, to another loyalty, the Kingdom of God, Light, and Righteousness, to which you become a slave. Your life changes.
I’m teaching my students/ kids a song for April that puts Luke 9:23 to music. “How to follow the Lord, this is what he says, ‘deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. Deny yourself, pick up your cross, Luke:923.’” More than asking God into your heart makes someone a disciple of Jesus. Not even sure I can find that in Scripture. “Believe with your heart, “ yes, but not accepting Jesus into your heart. There’s so much more. David understood.
It’s not a payment for salvation. There is a cost believers pay with our lives to say, “I believe” and to become a Christ Follower. We don’t offer the LORD our God ourselves, and it does not cost us something. Accepting his free gift, cost us EVERYTHING!
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