Useless fires

Last night my A.B.S. group studied Malachi chapter one, and it has inspired some serious introspection for me. In this text, God speaks through Malachi warning the priests of Israel to make only the best offerings unto Him. He speaks about how Israel and its priests had become accustomed to bring "crippled, diseased, and blind animals" to sacrifice unto God. God refers to this action as "defiling Him", and in what I think is the climax of this passage God says:

"Oh that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar."
Malachi 1:10 (NIV)

followed by...

"Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord."
Malachi 1:14 (NIV)

Let that verse sink in for a moment. Cursed...is the cheat...Keep in mind that this is God speaking here. That's some of the strongest language that He uses in all of Scripture. In fact, it's caused me to wonder, "Do I cheat God out of my best? Do I light useless fires upon His altar?" And sadly...the answer is "yes".

I get up some days intending to spend quality time with God in prayer and study, but I end up only giving Him my leftovers. There are days when I only pray about the things that are "comfortable" to pray about instead of having a fruitful dialogue with my Abba. There are days when I pass on the opportunity to share the love of Christ with someone who may desperately need to hear it. There are days when I give into temptation and let my flesh get the best of me. I need to face it...somedays I just light useless fires on the altar of my God...

OUCH!

So I've decided to focus on this for a while. I've decided that I'm going to really scrutinize my time and behaviors to make sure that I am bringing the purest most acceptable sacrifice to my King. How about you? Do you light useless fires? Do you make less than acceptable offerings unto God? If so, will you join me in doing the hard work of correcting that? I hope you will. Grace and Peace to you today.