Last week I happened to travel in the pittoresque Alpine region of southern Germany where there was still more than an inch of glistening white snow on the ground. This week, as I pushed the lawnmower around the shaggy "meadows" of my "estate", the temperature was at almost 80°, for the first time in ... years?
Praise the Lord.
The weather is still great today. I literally force myself to stay in this here office of mine in order to write this article for you. Forgive me if it will be sort of short.
Lets delve right in.
Every christian desires to live in a close, personal relationship with God. To experience the manifest presence of the Spirit is what we truly desire. We love it when our heart is assured of his affirming nod in our direction. The soul is at ease when it is flush with warm emotions because God took the initiative and spoke to our spirits. Experiencing answers to prayer, seeing his hand at work in our lives, inspires our faith and lets us reach yet higher highs.
Yet every christian knows periods of drought in his spiritual life. Every once in a while there are those times when God seems to be far, far away, when our prayers fall powerlessly to the ground, when we listlessly thumb through our bibles. Sometimes a wall seems to stand between us and our father in heaven.
That's tough.
Wouldn't it be wonderful, if the Lord would take the initiative in situations like that and just break through? It would be great, if he by his own volition would come and grasp us and lift us up. Is there anything we can do in moments like these?
Is there a way out of the desert?
How can we attract God's attention?
Well.
In the bible people drew near to God by honouring him. In the most spectacular cases God burst upon the scene when they honoured him with a sacrifice. (Not just finances.) And sacrifices and offerings are still, to this day, integral elements of true spiritual life. If you feel dry, you probably haven't honoured God through giving lately.
The first person who ever experienced alienation and subsequently a "wall" between himself and the Lord was Adam. The reason for this feeling of separation was, of course, Adam's sin. When God came to visit the first man and found him in his pitiful state, the first thing he did was to kill two animals. Their blood covered Adam and Eve's spiritual nakedness. And their skins covered their natural nakedness. God tore down the wall right away and restored them to fellowship.
The ultimate sacrifice which demolished the most important barrier between God and man was the offering which Jesus offered up on the altar of the cross. His blood does not just cover our sins, it eradicates them completely. It makes us new. Faith in him brings back the life of God into our hearts and we are born again. Hallelujah. Now we are not sinful children of Adam any more, but are made into the righteous offspring of the great Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But even thoroughly saved people honoured God with wall-breaking or wall-preventing offerings in the bible.
Noah, a man who found favour with the Most High before all men, the only saved person in his generation among seven others, offered an elaborate sacrifice as soon as he left the ark and stood on dry ground again. And God was pleased with that offering and blessed Noah and his sons because of it. One of its consequences was the promise that God would never destroy the world by water ever again. If you will: the rainbow, - sign of that covenant -, is a result of Noah's offering. ( Genesis 8, 20f.)
The patriarch and "father of our faith" Abraham paid his tithes to Melchizedek, the founder and pastor of Jerusalem. (Genesis 14, 20.) He also gave special offerings to honour God. He was called the friend of God.
Before Gideon, one of the great liberators of Israel, was commissioned to fight the Lord's battles he was instructed to offer up a sacrifice before God. (Judges 6, 26.)
The young successor of David the king, Solomon, almost despaired at his task of ruling Israel. He threw himself upon God by sacrificing a gigantic offering in the city of Gibeon. 1 Kings 3, 4 says he offered a thousand burnt offerings on the altar there. In that night God appeared to the young ruler: "In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night; and God said, "Ask what you wish me to give you." (1 Kings 3, 5.)
Solomon asked for wisdom. Please note: he received his wisdom and the vision leading to it only after he had honoured God with his sacrifice!
The awesome power of an offering given with the motive of honouring God!
Do you recall Elijah? In one day he singlehandedly led Baal-worshipping Israel back to the Lord their God.
How did he do it?
He challenged the prophets of Baal to pray for fire from heaven.
Nothing came.
Then he prayed and God ACCEPTED THE OFFERING which Elijah had prepared on behalf of the people. He prayed and God answered with fire. A lightning struck the water-soaked animal and it's altar and consumed them. The Lord respected the offering of his prophet and a powerful revival ensued. (1 Kings 18, 18f.)
In the New Testament we find men like Cornelius, the Roman centurio, who by virtue of his piety and his offerings attracted the attention of God. The Lord literally moved heaven (an angel) and earth (the apostle Peter) to bless him. (Acts 10, 1f.)
Of course the motive of giving has to be to honour God and to thank him. The nature of a gift implies that the recipient is free to reject it, should he not be pleased with it. If we attach too many strings to our present, it ceases to be one. It becomes a pay-off. And God is no slot-machine: offering in, blessing out. There is really no automatism here. Look at Ananias and Sapphira. They gave a voluminous offering - with the wrong motives - and died because of it! (Acts 6, 1f.)
On the other hand, the poor widow of Luke 21, 1 put all but two measly mites into the temple-treasurebox. Yet she incurred Jesus' attention. He even started to preach about her: in his eyes she gave more than the rich who gave much. She gave more, because she gave all she had.
Which goes to show something else:
AN OFFERING IS SOMETHING INCREDIBLY INTIMATE. Giving is one of the most personal things one can do to God.
It is not the size of the sum that determines the greatness of the gift. The question is rather: what did it cost you personally?
For Solomon the sacrifice was 1000 burnt offerings. That is a royal size offering, adjusted to the size of his royal coffers. It truly cost him something.
For the widow it was two mites, less than the fraction of a penny in absolute value. Yet her offering was as well received as Solomons, because it truly cost her something, too.
By the way: at the end of his earthly carreer Jesus taught nearly exclusively in the temple of Jerusalem. And the room he chose to minister in was - of all places - the TREASURY! (John 8, 20.)
Why would the Lord choose to preach in a hall where people came in all the time to stick their offerings into the trumpet-shaped treasure-boxes that were arrayed there? Wouldn't that clinking sound of falling coins destract him and his listeners?
Well, he followed a compelling logic: only people who took their faith serious enough to give an offering would ever come into the treasury. Scroogy and unblessable people would avoid that room like the plague. By preaching in the treasury he made sure that only humble, god-loving, giving people would hear him, people who were truly interested in God and the furthering of his kingdom. Who knows how many Jewish believers came to give money and stayed to receive the word?
Jesus said that where our treasure is, our heart will be also. (Luke 12, 34.) If we carry our money to the mall, the gym, the - pardon me - whorehouse or, - much better -, our church, that's where our heart will be. And if your heart is in your church, it will be a living, thriving, blessed church! That's radical, but I can tell you from experience: There is probably no greater way to move the Lord, there is no faster way out of misery, than to honour him with a sacrifice. By giving you follow in the footsteps of the giants of faith.
Amen.
So, and now I will run outside to catch some rays before the sun is down.
God's richest and best to you,
Gert Hoinle, Pastor
P.S.: I have to tell you this: God took away an irritating half-inch growth under my arm which I carried for about two years. After practicing the above message and cursing the ugly thing in the name of the Lord for about seven weeks the growth came off in its entirety within a few hours, leaving only new skin. It was one of the greatest workings of God on me which I have ever experienced.
Also: a young nurse in our church was healed of a dollar-coin-sized malignant (cancerous) tumor in her ovaries. Several doctors have diagnosed her condition before and after her healing.
A young man was healed of the deadly Hepatitis C virus which had befallen his liver. Two doctors, - one a specialist -, checked him in their practices after prayer and gave him a clean bill of health. His liver is fine, too. Many other things are happening as well. All this just within the last few weeks. Praise be to Jesus! GH.
Copyright © 2001 by Delta Christliche Dienste e.V.