A Better Sacrifice
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| sensusfide |
"By faith Abel presented God a better sacrifice," (Heb.11).
A better sacrifice. If you knew a better way of worshipping God, would you do it? Churches spend, time, money and effort tiring themselves out to give God a better worship. Some do it long, some non-stop. They look attractively spiritual, but why? Why do we still do them? Why do we still think it's by our hard efforts? Because we fail to see what's a better sacrifice in God's eyes.
A better sacrifice. If you knew a better way of worshipping God, would you do it? Churches spend, time, money and effort tiring themselves out to give God a better worship. Some do it long, some non-stop. They look attractively spiritual, but why? Why do we still do them? Why do we still think it's by our hard efforts? Because we fail to see what's a better sacrifice in God's eyes.
More about a better (and radical) sacrifice pleasing to God. Read the book review of "God's Flesh" the e-book by clicking here.
You can worship much better without "worshiping." I mean, the way we worship today. Seriously, you should always settle for nothing less than the best worship. The highest worship. And the best worship is far from being through our own efforts. It's far from anything we do today--or anything invented or made possible by man. Man, even in born-again condition (or what church people think is "born again"), is fallen.
A better sacrifice is by faith.
Of course, we all know this, right? But we seldom get the point, really. If we want a better worship for God, then simply live by faith everyday. Simply live by faith! The key words here are "live" and "faith." God looks for a life, not just a worship activity. Worship with no life (the Jesus Life in the believer) is self-worship or idolatry---exactly what Cain did to merit a curse marked on his forehead. Worship is a LIFE. If you worship God without the LIFE, you're marked. And the devil will see that mark even from a far distance. He'd know that your worship is fake. It can't hurt him.
Better sacrifice is better LIFE. The best worship is the best LIFE---seeing face to face, not anymore through a glass darkly like what most of us have today.
Don't think that a worship with "life" means you make it lively and expressive and loud and long and repetitious and accompanied with cries and wailing. Don't make it like that (some churches just formulate these things). In fact (listen to this), DON'T MAKE ANYTHING. Let the Holy Spirit do the making.
A better sacrifice should have this. Click here.
Living by faith means, first, depending solely on God. This means giving up everything and surrendering them to God. Giving up (often, this means you totally just forget about them) what you can do and have, including your "grand plans" for God, and relying solely on his leading. It's also giving up worship not empowered by the spoken WORD. You may sing or play instruments all you want in church (even sing good and expressively). Yet, if you don't meditate the Word day and night (the Word that proceeds out from the mouth of God), it's all useless.
True worship is giving back to God what He's given us. God did not come so we can have church programs, activities, church music or fellowship, though these are good. He said, "I have come that you may have LIFE, and have it more abundantly." It's abundant spiritual LIFE that God's given us, so it's what we should offer back to him in worship. Therefore, true worship---and a better sacrifice like what Abel did---is offering God our abundant spiritual LIFE during worship and everyday of our lives. This is real worship and genuinely living a life of faith.
Hannah, Samuel's mother, knew this so well. She asked the Lord for a boy, and when the Lord gave her one, she gave his life back to the Lord. Life for life. She declared:
It's like the talent given to the servant. When the master came back, the good and faithful servant grew his 5 talents 5 times more. What pleases God is faith or spiritual life that grows and multiplies. And faith like that means abundant spiritual life that increases each day.
The WORD is eternal [Psalm 119.89]. It didn't start when Moses got the 10 commandments. He (the Word) is the Alpha and Omega because the WORD is Jesus, says Revelation 19. So, before the time of Abel and Cain, the Word was already there. And God had placed the Word into their hearts. God also does that to folks who haven't read the Word yet:
Better sacrifice is better LIFE. The best worship is the best LIFE---seeing face to face, not anymore through a glass darkly like what most of us have today.
Don't think that a worship with "life" means you make it lively and expressive and loud and long and repetitious and accompanied with cries and wailing. Don't make it like that (some churches just formulate these things). In fact (listen to this), DON'T MAKE ANYTHING. Let the Holy Spirit do the making.
A better sacrifice should have this. Click here.
Living by faith means, first, depending solely on God. This means giving up everything and surrendering them to God. Giving up (often, this means you totally just forget about them) what you can do and have, including your "grand plans" for God, and relying solely on his leading. It's also giving up worship not empowered by the spoken WORD. You may sing or play instruments all you want in church (even sing good and expressively). Yet, if you don't meditate the Word day and night (the Word that proceeds out from the mouth of God), it's all useless.
True worship is giving back to God what He's given us. God did not come so we can have church programs, activities, church music or fellowship, though these are good. He said, "I have come that you may have LIFE, and have it more abundantly." It's abundant spiritual LIFE that God's given us, so it's what we should offer back to him in worship. Therefore, true worship---and a better sacrifice like what Abel did---is offering God our abundant spiritual LIFE during worship and everyday of our lives. This is real worship and genuinely living a life of faith.
Hannah, Samuel's mother, knew this so well. She asked the Lord for a boy, and when the Lord gave her one, she gave his life back to the Lord. Life for life. She declared:
I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.True worship involves life.
It's like the talent given to the servant. When the master came back, the good and faithful servant grew his 5 talents 5 times more. What pleases God is faith or spiritual life that grows and multiplies. And faith like that means abundant spiritual life that increases each day.
The WORD is eternal [Psalm 119.89]. It didn't start when Moses got the 10 commandments. He (the Word) is the Alpha and Omega because the WORD is Jesus, says Revelation 19. So, before the time of Abel and Cain, the Word was already there. And God had placed the Word into their hearts. God also does that to folks who haven't read the Word yet:
Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.[Romans 2]
They weren't exactly "gentiles" but Cain and Abel didn't have the law yet. But they had the Word. The requirements were put in their hearts supernaturally. So this principle applied to them. They hadn't read the law but it was put in their hearts. And the law said that God was pleased when the required animals were sacrificed to him---when life with blood was offered and sacrificed. Abel did that. He knew how to please God. Though Cain also knew it, he insisted on offering fruits.
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. [Genesis 4]
Cain should have traded his fruits with some of Abel's flocks and offered animals to God instead of fruits. He didn't. He insisted his own way. So God told him:
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
The principle hasn't changed. God still requires life offered in worship today, but not anymore the physical bodies of animals. Paul says we present our bodies (our lives) as pleasing sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God which is our spiritual worship. This is made possible by what Jesus did with his physical body on the cross.
And a better insight on this is eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood. He said that his flesh was real food and his blood real drink [John 6]. He added that anyone who didn't eat his flesh "has no life in him." A better sacrifice then has lots to do with "eating his flesh," which means "eating" the Word of God day and night. Don't just read the Word. Eat it. You become what you eat.
What Jesus did physically has a powerful spiritual value for us throughout history. We now please God by faith by believing what Jesus did for us on the cross. And genuine believing seriously includes offering our lives as pleasing sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.
See this God's flesh wisdom: "I didn't merely give them commands on burnt offering and sacrifices, but also this command: Obey and walk in all the ways I tell you" (Jer.7). That's LIFE.
A better sacrifice? A better worship? Quit tiring yourself. Give up your exhaustive worship service! It's NEVER by works or efforts. It's always simple by faith that move mountains. That's pure God's flesh.
See this God's flesh wisdom: "I didn't merely give them commands on burnt offering and sacrifices, but also this command: Obey and walk in all the ways I tell you" (Jer.7). That's LIFE.
A better sacrifice? A better worship? Quit tiring yourself. Give up your exhaustive worship service! It's NEVER by works or efforts. It's always simple by faith that move mountains. That's pure God's flesh.