A Polluted Sacrifice

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Have you ever done a half-way job on a task and felt really bad about it afterwards? I know I sure have! Growing up, my parents always instructed me to excel – to do my very best, and to “work as unto the Lord.”

“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” - Colossians 3:23-24

As I came to the last book of the Old Testament during my quest to read through the Old Testament prophets, the first chapter of Malachi showed that the Israelites were guilty of doing a half-way job too, in a sense. Malachi delivered a message from the Lord, in which God pointed out their lack of devotion to Him:

“Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine alter; and ye say, “Wherein have we polluted Thee?” In that ye say, “The table of the Lord is contemptible.” And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts.” – Malachi 1:7-8

Ouch. Back then, when sacrifice was required, the offering had to be spotless, the best lamb of the flock, a pure and unblemished sacrifice, which as we know was a foreshadowing of Christ sacrificing himself for our sins. But here, the Israelites weren’t giving God the best they had. As Christians, Paul instructed us in the New Testament to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1b) So basically, when we knowingly do a half-way job, we’re guilty of the same sin as the ancient Israelites: offering an unworthy sacrifice to the Lord, a polluted and blotted sacrifice, if we are not striving constantly to be as much like His Son as we possibly can here on this earth in our daily actions. Will we ever achieve that perfection? Of course not, not in this life. But our very lives are our sacrifice to God, and when that sacrifice is half-hearted, and when we’re not living as blameless of a life as we can as fallen humans who are redeemed by Grace, then our sacrifice is polluted.

Naturally, I’m not saying that you can’t be saved if you’re not perfect, because as Christians we know that we are dirty sinners who require nothing short of the miraculous act of the salvation of God by the death and resurrection of His Son to cleanse us from our sins. But after we have been redeemed and cleansed by His Power, we know that we are to conform our lives into His image, that we might be a fitting representative of Him to the world. And that means we have to do everything, even the most menial of tasks, to the best of our abilities.

There is an added dimension to this when it is applied to a father raising a family, as this blog is focused towards. We know through the pattern of Scripture that as the head of the family, the father is the representative of Christ, the covering of his wife and his family. Even when it’s not intentional, fathers teach their children about the nature of God simply because of the position which a father holds. If a father does a half-way job, if he offers a blemished sacrifice, then he could unwittingly lead his children to believe that God will also leave His work incomplete. This is just an example, but do you see how a father’s actions will reflect upon Christ? Granted, as I mentioned in an earlier post, we men are still sinful humans and bound to make mistakes because of our fallen nature, but that’s where God’s Grace and forgiveness with our imperfection comes into play, and He will make the way for us as we show our family with a humble nature that we are striving to be like the only One Who is perfect.

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