How Much Does Our Worship Cost?

Hey Everyone,

I was reading 2 Samuel this week and have been challenged by the story in Ch 24:18-25. King David was building an altar to God and went to Araunah's home. Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” “To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the plague on the people may be stopped.” Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. O king, Araunah gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the LORD your God accept you.”But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

David was utterly convinced that his offering to God should be costly to Him… and this has challenged me. Is my worship costing me anything? What am I sacrificing? If you think about it, there is a high cost in almost anything that has great value. I love the fact that David just can't bring himself to be cheap or stingy when it comes to his worship to God. The life of a worshiper doesn’t come cheap. It demands of us our, time, energy, passion, finances, determination, perseverance and faith.

As a worship team, we do work hard in serving our church, but I truly believe that God has got bigger plans for us. If we are to keep moving forward, perhaps we need to challenge ourselves and think about the following: How can we give more of our own time to practice and learn new songs ? How can we practice as a band more regularly - once every two weeks is not enough! Do we come well-prepared musically for rehearsals? How can we help encourage other musicians in the church to develop as worshipers? Are we praying constantly for our church? Are we contributing financially, faithfully to our church? Are we sacrificing time to read the scriptures? Are we diligent with thinking and praying about our song lists? The life that God has called us to is expensive. The good news is that the rewards always, always, always outweigh the cost of all that we pour out to God.

Let's be a generous, unrestrained, abundant and extravagant worship team!

Simon