PART 1
What offering is worthy enough to please God?
Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing! Revelation 5:11
Have you ever reached a place in your relationship with God - whether you're a new believer or one that has been around for years - where you find yourself wanting to please God all the time? And to do this, you try to do good deeds. You strive to love every person you meet, or you follow your daily quiet times without miss. You are involved in your local church, you pray a lot, worship a lot, and you silently get upset with yourself when you mess up or sin. If you can relate to this, well, hey, me too! I find myself getting so caught up in my actions and good deeds that after a while, I'm tired, worn out, and I feel like wanting to do none of it!
My offering unto God feels stale because my offering is my works, and I realised that God doesn't want that...
This leads me to this question: How do we please God?
Before we get into this, I want to turn to Genesis 2. In the old testament, offerings were given unto God as payment for our sins and as an act of worship. This is first seen right back in Genesis 2. Cain and Abel gave offerings to God whereby Cain's offering was some of his land's produce and Abel's offering was the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. God accepted Abel's but not Cain's. Why?
You could say that God wanted to see Cain's response to this. Cain had the choice to give the best of his land's produce and repent for not initially giving his best, or he had the choice to grow despondent and jealous of Abel. Unfortunately, Cain chose the latter and murdered his brother which reaped a consequence of him being unable to yield anything from the ground he worked on and became a restless wanderer on earth. We can already see here that God accepts gifts of great value and worth and He is just when it comes to the penalty of sin.
We also see that Cain's offering was a work of his own sweat and hard labour. Abel's offering was one of patience, rest, and responsibility. Abel guarded his offering and Cain laboured for his.
Birthing through this is already God putting His plan into motion from the beginning. This redemptive plan of the great mystery of His Son, Jesus Christ. God accepted the firstborn of Abel's flock and we know now that Jesus is God's one and only Son Who became the firstborn of many brothers and sisters.
Our work and toil to please God means little in His eyes. This world may label success as hard work, intelligence and labour. Their wealth can be stored up high on this earth but in the end it is eaten by moths, stolen, and left behind. Yes, it is good to work hard, be responsible for what you have, and to do your work as if it is unto God, not unto man.
But to please God? The answer is simple:
Resting in the finished work of His Son Jesus Christ.
Our idea of offerings unto God - whether it is the daily sacrifices we make, our resistance to fleshly temptations, our jobs or work commitments, our humble actions amongst others, our ministry work, or our lyrical melodies and songs - these offerings are fruits of our faithful love and commitment to following Christ which are noticed and cherished in God's eyes.
But The Offering, that is really only worthy enough to be our offering, is the precious Lamb of God - Jesus Christ. This Offering is mighty enough to break sinful chains and deathly disease, is gentle enough to mend broken hearts, is victorious enough to cast evil into the fiery pit for eternity, and is real enough to be offered to you today.
My brother and my sister, it is easy to forget that it is not our love for God, but His love for us. It is easy to forget that it was Jesus hanging on the Cross for the main purpose of bringing you back to Himself - your work and sacrifices don't suffice. You and I have been offered The Offering from God Himself because we have time and time again, countlessly throughout all history, failed to be enough, do enough, obey enough, and accept Him as enough. Well friend, He is enough because Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, never sinned, wholeheartedly obeyed and followed God, defeated death, rose up from the grave, and took His rightful place in heaven next to God. He did this to become the very fulfilment of the law that tells us to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.
Jesus Christ is The Offering.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
*Don't miss Part 2 of The Offering. Coming soon.
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