A good friend gave me a study Bible years ago. No words could express me appreciation. But soon afterwards I called my friend frustrated. I stopped reading because I couldn’t understand why God would be so harsh as to reject Cain’s offering. After all, as a farmer, he simply brought to God what he had. Did God expect him to bring a different kind of sacrifice? Sadly, my friend told me I had missed the true point.
It wasn’t that God didn’t like Cain’s offering. Actually, He knew Cain’s offering was masking an unrighteous attitude. Cain wasn’t fully committed to God, as expressed by the fact he wasn’t living according to His ways.
Also my friend shared, it’s easy to worship God on the outside while stubbornly keeping space from Him on the inside. Paul writes in Jude about outwardly religious people who use religious activities to cover the reality of their sinful lives: “Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain” Jude 11. We can faithfully serve God, sing His praises, and give sacrificially to His work. But God doesn’t want any of this without our hearts.
We must let the Lord take priority over our plans and dreams. He is worthy of more than the sin which tempts us. When we express to God, He is more worthy than anything or anyone else in our lives, it’s an offering He’d never turn away.
Please share a time when you knew God was finally getting the very best you had to offer, not something coming just from your head.
See you next Sunday,
MJ