March 31st- A Worthy Offering

There are too many examples in the Bible of God rejecting offerings for me to cite. The Israelites were commanded to give God the first of their flocks, but they kept of giving him sickly and lame animals instead. In other words, they only gave God the things that they didn't have much use for, and that they could easily live without. When I first read the Old Testament in high school, all of the scriptures talking the old offerings fell deaf on my ears. I thought, "This has nothing to do with me. I don't even own any cattle. And anyways, things are different now. That's just Old Testament stuff, like not being allowed to eat pork, or being ceremonially unclean." Now that I am a bit older, I am able to see the times when I give God my "lame sheep".

I don't know why, but it is very easy to buy into the lie that we should only give things to God that aren't any use to us. For example:

• We share our faith beautifully in situations where we receive praise for it, but fall suspiciously silent when we are around people who will ridicule us for what we believe.
• We carefully make sure that we have enough money for all of our monthly expenses, and that we have enough money for entertainment, before we even consider tithing.
• We are willing to give things to God, but it has to be on our terms. We give Him stipulations for our obedience. We say, "I will go where you are calling me and do you work, but you better not let me be alone!", "I'll study the Bible for an hour a day, but the rest of the time belong to me!"
• We rely on God only when the bottom falls out. We wait to be dumped or abandoned before we desire to spend time with him. We only go to him when all other options are exhausted.
  

Sometimes even other believers will try to tell you that it isn't His will for you to give something that actually costs you. There is this strange idea that anything that goes against our basic needs is contrary to the will of God (needs for food, shelter, companionship, etc.). This is a lie. God will continually call us to do things that we believe are impossible and to give things that we don't think we can live without, just to show us that He is able to pull us through it.

I admit that a lot of the examples that I have given here are exaggerations, but the bottom line is that often times we feel like we have the right to tell God what we are willing to give Him, rather than acting out of obedience to His call.

This subject has been something that I have thought about a lot in the past two months. It is difficult to be away from the people that I love, and it is even more difficult to think about how long it will be until I see them again. There have been times when I have asked God why I have to give all of that up. The scripture that came to my mind was 2 Samuel 24:24,

"But the king replied to Araunah, 'No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.' So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them."

David refused to give a free offering to the Lord because he wanted his offering to be a sweet aroma for his God. This scripture speaks to me when my sinful nature tells me that I have given enough. It is a blessing to be able to give things to God that cost us, and I will rejoice in being able to offer him things that are hard to give.

The final thing I am going to say about giving offerings to God, is that He promises to bless us for them. This is not the reason that we give to Him, but I would be remiss if I did not mention this. He will bless every offering that we give him, and return it back to us. These blessings don't always come back in the form that we gave them, but they are always what we need. Many times he is calling us to give more to Him so that he can return to us the blessing of faith. We may not realize it at the time, but He is doing this to prepare us for something greater. If we are not able to give him the "first of our flock" during the ordinary parts of life, He will never lead us into the extraordinary.

Feel free to comment or to email me about what you think (good or bad) about any of this. I enjoy hearing different people's opinions on things.

God Bless,

-Jon

March 29th- Where our Treasure is.

Matthew 6:21 "Where your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will be also."

Where do you put your treasure? The best way to find the answer this question is to look at where your heart is. Do you find joy in doing the things of God, or are you bored when you are praying, reading the Bible, or sitting in church? When we find ourselves unable to find joy in doing God's work, it is because we have put our treasure in things other than Him. Strangely enough, many times these things are disguised as being Christian work. We must ask ourselves, do we love to pray because we want to be with God, or do we pray so that people will know us as a person who prays? Do we spend time reading the word because we love his commands, or because we love doing what we are "supposed" to do? Do we seek God because we really want him, or because we have fallen in love with the things that he can give us? These are important questions for us to ask ourselves. Anything in our lives that takes away from our desire to seek Jesus must be removed, no matter how noble it might look on the outside. Only when we put our treasure solely in the person of Jesus Christ are we able to truly delight in his work, and because he deeply desires for us to be joyful, he will never let us be content with the idols that we set up in His place.

Proverbs 4:23 "Guards your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."

March 27th-Righteous Giving

In my opinion, the Sermon on the Mount is the most profound set of standards that has ever been written. When Jesus talks about giving, he says,

"But when you give to someone in need, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." (Matthew 6:3)

This principle does not just apply to the way that we give to people in need, but also to how we give any kind of offering to God. We aren't meant to do good deeds just for the public to see, and more importantly, we are meant to hide our righteous acts even from ourselves. We are very good at remembering all of the things that we have done for God, and rarely hesitate to pat ourselves on the back for the times when we do what we are "supposed" to do. What we don't realize is that in doing this, we are trading the righteousness of Christ for our own righteousness. This is not good enough for the life that Jesus has called us to. He requires us to hide our good acts from ourselves, and to find holiness only in Him. Whether we are living in perfect obedience, or are struggling with a chronic sin, we must approach Him in prayer daily, asking to be covered in the only source that can give us new life--the righteousness found in the blood of Jesus Christ.

The Title

It seems like everyone starts a blog off by explaining it's purpose, and it's title, so I figure that's a good place for me to start as well. This blog is going to be partially about what my life in Peru is like, but mostly I want it to be a collection of short and to the point devotionals. I am doing this mostly to force myself to think about things more concisely, and hopefully to bless those who read it.

Now on to the title. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) That's pretty crazy, isn't it? We are told to be perfect the same way that God is perfect! I am going to talk about what this has come to mean in my life, mostly by sharing things that I have learned from being redeemed in my failures. I hope you enjoy!

-Jon