“But King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
I Chronicles 21: 24
The entire passage from verses 18-30 is about how the Lord commands Gad to tell David to build an altar on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite and how David pays the price for the land though Ornan asks David to take it with no cost.
An Altar on a threshing floor
Of all the places where God could have commanded an altar to be built , He chose a threshing floor. Why a threshing floor ? A threshing floor is a place where sheaves of grain would be spread across the threshing floor. Pairs of donkeys or oxen (or sometimes cattle, or horses) would then be walked round and round, often dragging a heavy threshing board behind them, to tear the ears of grain from the stalks, and loosen the grain itself from the husks. After this threshing process, the broken stalks and grain were collected and then thrown up into the air with a wooden fork-like tool called a winnowing fan. The chaff would be blown away by the wind; while the heavier grain would fall at the winnower's feet.
Wow ! Isn’t that what an altar is for ? It’s a place where we die to self. It’s a place where we say “Lord here I am … separate me from the husk of the world…”. Its a place of sacrifice ! It’s a place where we are consumed completely by Him !
It is going to cost us
David said He would not offer to the Lord anything that costs him nothing . Wow… I pray that really hits us today. We have somehow gotten ourselves to a form of convenience. We pray ‘when its convenient’ , we attend church services ‘when its convenient’ , we help people ‘when its convenient’ , we decide oh I’m not of this world ‘when its convenient’.
Presenting ourselves as living sacrifices to Him , laying ourselves out on the threshing floor - laying ourselves on the altar is not going to be convenient – that’s why its called a sacrifice J Its going to take a lot out of us…
Matthew 3: 12 , “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Are we going to be found as separated grain at His feet or will we be found as chaff?
God Bless
