Daily Devotion for June 11, 2025

Devotion:

For an audio version of this devotion, click here.

Read 2 Samuel 24:18-24.

After David sins by conducting a prideful census, he is confronted with the consequences: a devastating plague upon the people. But at the threshing floor of Araunah, the judgment halts. David is told to build an altar there. Araunah offers his land and animals freely, but David refuses: “I will not offer... that which costs me nothing.”

In that moment, David grasps a deep spiritual truth: authentic worship requires real sacrifice. It cannot be hollow, convenient, or self-serving. It must cost us something meaningful—because love that doesn’t give isn’t love at all.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this out in his book The Cost of Discipleship. He warned against cheap grace—grace that asks nothing of us, grace without discipleship or the cross. In contrast, costly grace is the way of Christ: “It is costly because it cost God the life of his Son... and it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life.”

And that is exactly what we remember and receive in Holy Communion. At the Table, we come face to face with the most costly offering of all—the body and blood of Jesus, given freely for us, but at the greatest cost to him. Each time we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are reminded that God’s grace is not a handout. It’s a love so deep it went all the way to the cross. A love that still asks us to follow in the same spirit of self-giving.

Communion is not just a remembrance; it’s a summons. We are invited to live sacrificially because we have been loved sacrificially. Like David, we are called to bring offerings that cost us—our pride, our comfort, our time—because we have been bought with a price.

Personal Worship Option:

Pray: Loving God, you did not hold back your own Son, but gave him up for us all. As I receive your grace at the Table, teach me to respond with a life that costs something—a life that reflects your sacrificial love. Amen.