Child Sacrifice

Deuteronomy 18:10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, [5] anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God, 14 for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this.
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I find it interesting that man has a tendency to sacrifice his children to god. Call it paganism or call it human nature, something inside knows that innocent life is the highest possible currency of love. Why would God forbid this act when he himself allows Jesus to go to the cross? Perhaps a more reasonable question is what kind of Father-God would put his own child through the fire that leads to death? How does this relate to the popularity of abortion? I submit two answers. First, our own children are not effective sacrifices. They are infinitely valuable and yet still inadaquate to accomplish that thing which we most desire - acceptance by God. Sacrificing them then becomes a futile act of selfishness, which leads to my second answer. Sacrificing our children, ironically, can be rooted in the selfish desire to be rid of them from our lives. Sacrifice is supposed to be an act of selflessness, not for the sake of losing the self completely, but rather in order to recalibrate ourselves as balanced people. We were originally created to love ourselves and others. It is with the vision of regaining this unity that God sanctions the sacrifice of his own son. To recap - God's sacrifice is both effective and selfless.
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Some will argue that God's act is not selfless because he intends to bring himself glory through it. I would argue that there is a distinct difference between a person who does not deserve honor or glory asking for it and someone else, who has earned it and even been slandered, asking for his due. God is due our glory.