Malachi 1:13

Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the LORD.

One of the courses I played a few years ago had a ball donation box off of the 18th green. Players could put drop their ball in the box and the contents were donated to a local youth program. My curiosity got the best of me and I had to look inside. I found Pinnacles, Mojo’s, Nike’s, and a few Pro-v’s which looked like they had at least two rounds of age on them.

The Bible teaches us to only give our best to God. The people in the scripture above were caught bringing their blind, lame, sick, and aged animals to be sacrificed. Is it really a sacrifice if you only give the worthless portion of your possessions? It’s similar to our donations to the Goodwill – old worn t-shirts and pants. We don’t want them, but we don’t want to just throw them away either. “That’s just wasteful” we reason. Their heart was not into the worship time at the Temple as we are told it had become “wearisome.” God expects our best whether it be from our time, talent, or effort. God regarded it a mockery to offer the worthless portion of their livestock. The effect is a reflection that the people despised or at least neglected God’s name and the table for sacrifice. How do we regard our time of worship on Sundays? Did we go to church yesterday only because the wife demanded it or just because Johnny didn’t have a baseball game? All of our sacrifices are to be taken off the top. This means we don’t only give from what’s left over. Just like our monetary tithes are to be taken off the top of our income, we don’t give God our time just because we don’t have anything else to do. He deems this as worthless sacrifice. What are we actually sacrificing? We didn’t want it to begin with and the extra time could possibly be filled by the wife giving us a yard project so we might as well “give it to Jesus.” He wants our first fruits or our very best. He gave His very best and only son so that we would have the possibility of eternal life. Let’s make a conscious effort to dig deeper into our bag. Even God can’t hit those Nitro balls!