Faith and Faith
I will sacrifice fat animals to you and an offering of rams; I will offer bulls and goats - Ps 66: 15
A casual reading of this verse suggests that someone is offering animals from their herd up to God. But there is a message here which is more threatening to our sense of self-reliance. Here is something which sprang from a discussion in one of our evening Bible readings.
Grazing businesses are keenly concerned about the bloodlines of their herds and a key to this is the careful selection of breeding stock. In this process the choice of male animals is crucial. In that a herd of hundreds of cows will be serviced by as few as a dozen bulls one can understand how bull selection can be the most powerful method of improvement of a herd.
The offering of bulls and rams was thus done at great sacrifice for the owner of a herd and especially when we consider that it was always the best that was offered up to God. This relates something more than willingness to give up a piece of what one has, but rather a radical confidence where one surrenders their very means of livelihood; a turning from reliance on natural principles and on to God Himself.
What makes this type of faith credible? It is not the faith of a fool, who leaps into the dark without knowledge of who it is that will catch him. Rather it is a faith like that of Abraham, who took up the dagger to his son because he knew from his past dealings that God would provide a sacrifice; who “made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country … for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:9-10).
Modern economies are based on the trading of resources and services. Men deal in this setting confident of their ability to control it, yet both the resources and the ability to render services are created by God, and therefore rightly belong to him anyway. The idea that these things belong to us and that we give a little back in appreciation is flawed. Our proper manner in these things is to respect Christ’s ownership and command over creation and to be warmed by the confidence that this makes him able to complete his promise that if we “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt 6:33).