A Faulty Sacrifice–Malachi 1:7-8

7“You offer defiled food on My altar,
But say,‘In what way have we defiled You?’
By saying,‘The table of the Lord is contemptible.’
                                                                                                                                                         ⁸ And when you offer the blind as a sacrifice,
Is it not evil? And when you offer the lame and sick,
Is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor!
Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?”
Says the Lord of hosts.

The Bible talks a lot about Sacrifice.  From the Old Testament to the New Testament we see Sacrifice scattered all throughout the Scriptures.   Before Christ came as the perfect and complete sacrifice believers had to offer up burnt sacrifices to the Lord as atonement for their sins. 

There are many passages that give guidelines for how these sacrifices were to be made and any Jew would have known the guidelines.  The Israelites are completely in disobedience and by their actions they are showing that they aren’t giving much regard to God or His law. 

We have house rules in our family.  Normal house rules that probably every family has like; no hitting, no biting, no throwing the football in the dining room, no muddy shoes on the carpet, etc.  Not too long ago my sweet son decided to tell me that he didn’t know that he shouldn’t wear muddy shoes in the house.  He did know!  He was just too lazy to do the right thing.  It was an inconvenience much like the Israelites.  They did know what the law said, but they were slacking off.  Maybe God wouldn’t notice if their offering had a small blemish.   Or like my son…maybe mom won’t ever know that I wore muddy shoes on the very light carpet.  We all have our own examples of times when we knew the right thing to do, but pretended that we didn’t just because it was an inconvenience. 

I can almost here the Israelites saying, “I didn’t notice that lamb was sick.”  or “Someone must have swapped animals because that one is not mine!”  God says, “Is this not evil?”  Would you dare offer these sacrifices to your Governor?  He points out.

Imagine that you are having the President (past or present) over for dinner.  What would you fix?  Wow, that is a tough one for me!  I love to cook, but even with my best recipes I wonder if anything would be good enough to make for the President of our country.   I guess I would figure out what his favorite foods were so that I wouldn’t make something he didn’t like.  Then, I would go about finding the absolute best recipe for his favorite foods.  I would then clean my whole house top to bottom 100 times over, get sitters for the kids, buy new place settings, and make everything perfect for his arrival.  To make a long point very short…I would want it to be perfect! 

Isn’t it funny how I would want every thing PERFECT for a mere human, but when it comes to God we serve Him things less than perfect.    This passage is so convicting to me.   I know exactly what He wants, but yet I try to serve Him everything else. 

In what ways do we serve God our imperfect sacrifices?