Tuesday, August
8, 2017
“When you enter the land the Lord your
God is giving you as a special possession and you have conquered it and settled
there, put some of the first produce from each crop you harvest into a
basket and bring it to the designated place of worship—the place the Lord your
God chooses for his name to be honored. Go
to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, ‘With this gift I
acknowledge to the Lord your God that I have entered the land he
swore to our ancestors he would give us.’
The priest will then take the basket from your hand and set it before
the altar of the Lord your God.
Deuteronomy 26:1-4(NLT)
Many things
we do in worship echo Old Testament pictures.
Lifting the offering plates before the altar table is symbolic of obedience
in bringing our tithes and offerings to God’s
house as instructed. But the
deeper meaning is the giving of ourselves, acknowledging that we are God’s
servants who have entered the land He promised; it is the land of God’s Kingdom.
That giving
is an important part of worship cannot be over-stated! Many of the important things we do in life begin
with the kind of declaration that signify our love, honor and fidelity.
·
In
worship we declare that with this
gift I will serve, worship and be changed…
·
In
business dealings we sign contracts that declare, by these words I will…
·
In
weddings we declare that with this
ring I will love, honor and cherish…
If our word
is our bond, in worship our gift laid before the altar demonstrates our faith.
Many people
contend that they believe in God, indeed that they have strong faith, and are “spiritual
– but not religious”. The meaning in
that can be interpreted in many ways, some good; some quite hypocritical.
On the good
side is discarding the façade of being
religious, just going through the motions, without any heart for
following God. Deeds without love is
hardly responding to the love of Christ.
On the bad
side is claiming spiritual depth
without obedience to the whole counsel of God.
This would include some of the ritual-like opportunities to serve, such
as attending worship at a local church, tithing the first-fruits of our labor, corporate
prayer, and working together in the community of faith to spread the Gospel.
The
hypocritical aspect of claiming to be spiritual, yet living outside the
community of faith – OK, let’s say this plainly – saying you love God, and are
spiritual, but you never darken the doorstep of church, is denying the very
faith you claim to have.
It is also
inconsistent to hold that you love and worship God, when you will not love and
obey the One who said he would build His church on the pillar of that
love.
So, you
want Jesus, but you don’t want the church?
To discard
the church Jesus loved is to discard Jesus.
For You Today
Make
sure the faith you proclaim is the faith you perform!
NOTES
[i]
Title Image: By Russell Brownworth (Own work), Mt
Zion UMC, Bennett, NC 8-6-17
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