“No,” the king said to Araunah. “I will buy them from you at a fair price. I won’t offer up to the Lord my God entirely burned offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver” (2 Samuel 24:24, CEB).

     A fourteenth-century legend tells the story of the Pied Piper. The German city of Hamelin was overrun by rats. No one in town knew how to dispose of the rodents. Then during a meeting of the town council, a strange man dressed in a red and yellow clown suit walked in. The Pied Piper, as he was known, claimed he could rid the city of the rat infestation. The agreed-upon fee was a thousand gilders ($555.00).

     So, the Pied Piper walked throughout the streets and fields playing his pipe. Out of the alleys, from the boroughs, and down from the attics came the rats squealing behind the clown. Thousands of the varmints pursued the Pied Piper until they plunged into the black water of the Weser River where they drowned.

     When the time came to settle accounts, the mayor of the town retracted the initial offer and refused to pay the Pied Piper claiming, “There’s nothing you can do about it!” Then the Piper stepped foot, once again, into the streets, but this time he played a different tune. To the mayor’s chagrin, the city’s children began dancing and laughing, as they followed the Piper toward the side of Koppleberg Hill. Upon their approach, a great cavern opened in the hillside, as all but one of the children marched in. Then the portal closed behind them, and no one saw the Pied Piper or the children ever, again.

     It’s an unsettling story. However, the moral is difficult to miss. Nothing worth having comes without a cost.

     David understood this principle. He would not offer God a sacrifice that didn’t cost him anything. David refused to park himself on someone’s dime.

     Many people in the world today learn this lesson the hard way. Becoming a world-class athlete doesn’t happen apart from paying a price at the gym. Those who rise to the top of their profession do not gain their lofty status apart from many hours of study and hard work. Patients who recover from surgery more quickly are apt to follow their physician’s prescribed directives versus those who do not. Even churches that wish to make a difference in their communities cannot do so without high levels of sacrifice and courage.

             Pastor and author, Joel Osteen, writes:

 “God wants you to have a good life, a life filled with love, joy, peace, and fulfillment. That doesn’t mean it will always be easy, but it does mean that it will always be good.”

      Thinking that you can get something for nothing will always lead to disappointment. Take it from the Pied Piper, you can put up now or pay the consequences later.