Hooray Us?

The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master.  If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve?  You have shown contempt for my name!  “But you ask, ‘How have we ever shown contempt for your name?’  “You have shown contempt by offering defiled sacrifices on my altar.  “Then you ask, ‘How have we defiled the sacrifices?  “You defile them by saying the altar of the Lord deserves no respect.  When you give blind animals as sacrifices, isn’t that wrong?  And isn’t it wrong to offer animals that are crippled and diseased?  Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is!” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  “Go ahead, beg God to be merciful to you!  But when you bring that kind of offering, why should he show you any favor at all?” asks the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. [Malachi 1.6-9]

"Less than best" seems to be the problem here.  The idea doesn't seem so much about the sacrifice as it is about the quality of the sacrifice.  If there is a lesson here for us today, it would most certainly be this: bring God nothing less than the best.  Whether the offering is material or not (perhaps time or devotion), it should be the best we can give. 

Yet, as if "When you've done it unto the least of these, you've done it unto Me" means nothing at all, we clean out our closets and garages of all the mostly useless worn-out junk and give it to the poor.  Hooray us.  NOT!

Father, I am terribly convicted of my own selfishness today.  Let it be that my gifts to You, whether directly or to my fellow man, be the best that I can give.