Giving back to God

Numbers 7:1–47

John 14:1–31

Psalm 8:1–9

The members of a church we used to attend were generous when the offering plate was passed, but had another practice that was puzzling; they donated used furniture and other items to furnish the building. These were second-hand cast-offs no longer wanted and far from being in the best condition. I’m not sure that I understand this, but today’s reading reminded me of it.

“He who offered his offering the first day was Nahshon the son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah. And his offering was one silver plate whose weight was 130 shekels, one silver basin of 70 shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them full of fine flour mixed with oil for a grain offering; one golden dish of 10 shekels, full of incense; one bull from the herd, one ram, one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering; one male goat for a sin offering; and for the sacrifice of peace offerings, two oxen, five rams, five male goats, and five male lambs a year old. This was the offering of Nahshon the son of Amminadab.” (Numbers 7:12–17)

Each chief of each of the twelve tribes gave the same offering. A shekel is about 2/5 of an ounce, so 200 shekels would be about 80 ounces. Today’s price of silver is about $16 an ounce x 80 = $128.00 in US dollars. The gold at 10 shekels or about 4 ounces prices out today at more than $4600.00. A bull could cost at least $5000 today (ranchers, please correct me if I used the wrong market prices website), a ram or a lamb could easily be $600, a goat could be $100 and up . . . so do the math. These people were instructed by God that every animal sacrifice and offering to the Lord was to be unblemished, the best of the flock. This particular offering was at the consecration of the temple, but it was not the only offering. They were continual.

Of course the offerings are types/shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, God seems to be saying that whatever we give Him, whether five loaves and two fishes, or several thousand dollars worth of gold, silver, and livestock, it should be from the top of the pile, not the bottom.

The second reading speaks to me about motivation. If I am giving anything to God, it should be an expression of how I value Him. He says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments . . . .Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him . . . . If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him . . . . You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” (John 14:15, 21, 23, 28)

I get it. If I love God, I will obey Him, but it suggests more than that. I love my hubby so I do my best for Him. I love God so I give Him the leftovers? Oh my. This is sad.

A tee-shirt says something about the wearer’s worth because of these words across the back of it: “God does not make junk.” Certainly this is true. The psalmist considered creation and said the same thing. However, he came to a different conclusion.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3–4)

Seeing the perfections of God humbled the psalmist rather than making him proud of himself. From all the above, humility and gratitude ought to be the effect of seeing the wonder of God and what He has done for me. I know that He gave me His best. I see it in creation. I see it in the offering of His Son for my sin. Giving back my best is not about earning His favor, but about saying thanks, and saying, “I love You.” 

A pure and holy offering

In some pagan cultures in Bible times, a person could not approach the king unless summoned. Otherwise they could lose their lives. Standing before royalty was a privilege not to be taken lightly. Perhaps this was in the back of Paul’s mind when he wrote this to the church at Rome . . .

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)

The word “present” as used in the New Testament carries the idea of a person standing before others, such as in a throne room, where they are presenting themselves. In this verse, “offering” could work, but it is less like “Here I am to serve you” and more like “all of me is at your disposal, even if you slay me.”

Romans 6 uses the same word in verses about how we are to present ourselves to God . . .

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Romans 6:13)

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6:16)

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. (Romans 6:19)

The idea is absolute surrender, not merely that I offer myself to God, but that I have become a slave that does only as the Father tells me to do, making no decisions for myself. All of me belongs to God.

Yet this is not about “just as I am” either. Romans 12:1 says, “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable” so God is not calling for an inclusive offer that has a “take me as I am” attitude. He wants me to offer Him only that which is “alive” leaving out the “dead in sin” old self. This is about the “alive to righteousness” person that is a new creation, regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit in new birth that happened when I believed. He wants me to present holiness and righteousness to Him, not a mixed bag of sometimes obedient and sometimes not.

I stand before God, the King of the universe. He asks for a worthy sacrifice has no spot or blemish. Even the lambs that were slain (prior to the once-for-all sacrifice of The Lamb, Jesus Christ) were unblemished. God is not interested in eyes that look at evil, hands that are greedy, feet that go to dark places, self-indulgent appetites, a heart full of rage, or a tongue that says things that should not be said.

Today’s devotional speaks of the importance of “spying out the spots on our bodies” because those who offered the sacrifices in the past were not permitted to offer “the blind, the injured or the maimed, or anything with warts or festering or running sores” (Leviticus 22:22). How much more must I present myself pure in every respect to worship Him in service?

I also think of Elijah’s offer and how flame came down from above and consumed the whole thing — water, wood, and stones — and realize this is what happens to offerings made to God. This is no small challenge. From Scripture and from experience, I know if I have anything in me that is “relaxed and secular” yet offer myself to God with good intentions, the fire of the Spirit will consume my worldliness. He makes certain that my offer is holy and acceptable so that God might receive what He asked for.

Spiritual worship is living my life according to Christ who lives in me. It is a surrendered life, offered to God as a sacrifice. While God accepts me as I am, the Spirit is at work that I do not stay that way. He is a consuming fire. When I bring to Him myself as that sacrifice, He takes only that which is from Himself and burns up all that is not. 

Offering our best

When God gave Moses directions for building the tabernacle in the wilderness, He specified the very best materials. For instance, the ark of the testimony was to be made from acacia wood overlaid with pure gold. The value of gold we know, but acacia wood is less familiar. Apparently it was a close-grained hardwood that insects would not touch, making it perfect for furniture and other articles that would withstand time and the elements in that arid land.

Of this ark with its covering called the mercy seat, God said to Moses in Exodus 25:22, “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.”

All through the Bible, God stresses the importance of offering the very best. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, the lamb must be without blemish. This lamb represented the ultimate sacrifice that was to come, the sinless Lord Jesus Christ. The ark and its covering also point to the atonement for sin provided by the Son of God, the place and the way that we can meet with God. Hebrews 4 says Jesus opened the way and verse 16 says we can “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Our salvation was obtained through the blood of an innocent and spotless Lamb who had no sin of His own requiring atonement. This is God’s reason for stressing the use of the very best, the sacrifice of the very best. It points to Jesus, and if Jesus was not the very best, there would be no value in His sacrifice.

What about the sacrifices that I offer God, not for salvation but in service to my Savior? Do they pass the test? Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

God wants me to first present myself to Him. This is reasonable; He gave Himself for me that I might live. In this verse He specifies that my offering be a living sacrifice. Most people would assume this about being an ordinary alive person, but the rest of the New Testament says that my old nature is dead and separated from God. While it still acts as if it is alive at times, that is false. Romans 6 and other passages say that my sinful nature died with Christ and should no longer rule over me. What God wants offered to Him is that new life that He gave me in Christ, actually, the very life of Christ lived out in my body. This is the only thing in my life that is “holy, acceptable to God” and is the very best that I can offer Him.

How is this practical? I’ve heard from missionaries how ‘boxes from home’ arrive filled with donated items that are often castoffs and leftovers, almost entirely useless for their needs. Why offer junk? It is disrespectful to those who give their lives to serve the Lord in faraway places, but it is also disrespectful to God. He gave His best, why keep our best for ourselves?

I’ve been in churches where donations for the poor are new items, but also in churches where donations are old, used, and basically junk that is no longer wanted. These offerings are easy to give and cost the donating person almost nothing. Instead of being like Jesus, they miss the opportunity of showing someone God’s love and care for them.

Mercy, which is giving that which is not deserved, is missed too. The recipients of my donations may or may not be what I would consider ‘deserving’ but I know without a doubt that I have not earned or deserved any of God’s blessings. If I’m going to show His grace and mercy to others, then when I make a donation, I must also offer the very best that I can.

Acceptable is not quite the same as unconditional love

This week reading about Cain and Abel has me thinking about the three issues of self-esteem. People want to be loved, be capable, be accepted. I’ve memorized verses about the first two, but hadn’t given much focus to the third one.

I know God accepts me, yet as I look at how Scripture and how the book Recalling the Hope of Glory talk about what is acceptable worship and what is not, I’m being challenged to think more deeply. God accepts me, but obviously is not happy with everything that I do. Even I’m not happy with everything I do. This morning I did a long study to see what the Bible says about God’s acceptance.

One of my commentaries says that contrary to the pagan viewpoint, the Bible is clear that “prayers and sacrifices are acceptable to God because a man’s person is acceptable.” It goes on to quote Genesis 4:4-5: “The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering: but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.”

This is what I wrote about yesterday. God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering showed that Abel’s person had already been accepted in that he gave his offering with a sincere and righteous heart (Hebrews 11:4), but Cain didn’t. He had a bad attitude that clearly showed up in his response after God told him that his offering was not accepted.

The “pagan viewpoint” is that giving any offering makes us acceptable to God. This is not biblical and has never been biblical, not in the Old Testament with its system of offerings and sacrifices, nor in the New Testament where Christ becomes our sacrifice. We can’t claim that Christ covers our sin and then keep on sinning. God wants total obedience.

As I read hundreds of verses about “acceptance” I realize that God’s unconditional love is not why He accepts us. Instead, acceptance has always been based on His standards. Whatever anyone offers God, the one making the offer and the offering must not in any point fall short of His perfect standard. He says that only those who persist in this high level of perfection may claim the reward of eternal life for their works.

But no one can do it. We all fall short of the glory of God. Only Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, and only He is accepted because only He merited God’s verdict: “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.”

Because I am not and cannot be perfect, my salvation could not be attained by doing what God accepts. I am saved through trusting Christ as my Savior and being incorporated into Christ, receiving the gift of His righteousness from God. This makes me accepted by God—and God does it. Through grace He makes me “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6) and my acceptance is based on what Jesus did, not what I do.

Now that I am a Christian, I fear I’ve had a tendency to think that any service to God is now acceptable. However, this morning’s vast readings of verses about acceptance show me that His standards remain. This is made clear throughout the Bible such as in verses like this from Malachi . . .

“When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”

. . . and like these from Isaiah 58 and Micah 6:

“Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen?” (And he goes on to describe acts of sacrificial goodness . . . )

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

The NT does affirm that I am made righteous by faith. Romans 9:30 says, “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith” is about those who were strangers to God and indifferent about acceptance with Him. Yet, they heard the Gospel and as soon as they received and believed it, they were justified in God’s sight and entered His family. Their acceptance was not a matter of religious history or ritual, or about anything they did or didn’t do. They were accepted because of His grace, through faith.

The Bible warns me about thinking faith is the end of the matter. He wants goodness to flow out of that, and not ordinary human goodness, but His standard of goodness, and with the right motives. Jesus said, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

I can try to impress people and be acceptable by doing good things. I can also get into a ‘do good and please God’ mode that is addressed in the book of Galatians as “another gospel,” but acceptance isn’t about me doing good. It is about Christ and His goodness given to me.

On the other hand, God will not accept anything less than perfection. Jesus also said, “Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Of course sin falls short of perfection and thankfully He covers that. 1 John 2:1 says, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”

But I’m supposed to rise above sin and “walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.”

No wonder that many people find the Bible confusing. In a nutshell it says God only accepts perfection, and we must be perfect, not only in what we do but who we are. Then it says we are not perfect, but fall short and our sin makes us anything but acceptable.

The answer is Jesus. He is the perfect one, the one who “fulfilled all righteousness” by saying no to sin and yes to God in all points. He identified with me in every aspect of life and testing, and only He passed all the tests. His life and the offering of it on the cross are accepted by God, and in Christ God accepts me.

I am “in Christ” because God put me there. Christ is “in me” because God put Him there. As a hand in a glove, He moves in me, motivates me, is my source and resource. As He says in John 15:5, “Without Me you can do nothing.”

The glove has been accepted because of the Hand, but if the glove moves without the hand motivating it, that movement is not acceptable. I’m made capable by the Hand, so know “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

I clearly see that unlike the love of God which is totally unconditional, being accepted by God has limits. He loves me because of who He is. He accepts me as a person because I am in Christ, but I still need to seek His will—because not everything a Christian does is acceptable to Him.