Making butter takes work. Churning it by hand is an exacting process, laborious in its intensity, and tiring in the extreme.
Once we start, we have to finish the process, or our butter-making process will fail.
Why is it so hard? We literally have to break apart the milk fat to release the fatty substance that makes up the butter. We drain off the resulting buttermilk, and we are left with creamy butter.
It takes work to create something wonderful for the Lord. We can’t just milk the cow. We have to process the milk before we present it to our God.
Genesis 18:8 tells of Abraham’s meeting with the angels of the Lord:
“Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.”
Abraham prepared the meal, but he didn’t participate in its consumption. He waited to the side, giving butter to the Lord. His butter was the result of the labors of his hands, offered unto God, not in self-indulgence, but in self-sacrifice.
God has given us our example by doing the same for us.
Genesis 1:29 tells of his gift of sustenance:
“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.’ ”
God created the plants, the seeds, and the fruit. He churned the butter, and he stood by as we consumed. When that wasn’t enough, he went further.
Isaiah 9:6 tells us:
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
The ultimate butter was served. The smoothest confection. The cream of the crop. Jesus was come to minister unto the world.
What’s the butter we offer to the Lord? What do we take that is ours, shake it up to bring out its best, and lay it at the Lord’s feet to let him partake while we stand under a nearby tree?
What do we offer to God that we don’t expect him to give back? That’s what makes up butter for our Lord.
When we don’t expect it back is when we know we’ve truly given something to God.
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Code: FGO.H.20.15b.vp.esv