Hi and welcome. Today, our quiet time is taken from the book of 1 Samuel 2. Let’s dig in.
What does offering mean? The word comes from the word offer, which means to present or to proffer something for someone to accept, according to Oxford Dictionary definition. So, if we are offering to God, it should be something he can receive. Since we can never really give any material thing to God because he is Spirit, our offering to God must be in our heart. How we honor God in our hearts is our offering to him. We also honor our fellow men from our hearts.
Apparently, how we honor God- representing worship to him, matters. God told Eli in 1 Samuel 2:29 that they -Eli and his sons had disdained the offering of the Lord’s house. How? God told Eli he had disdained his worship by honoring his sons above the Lord. In addition, he fattened himself on the best part of the offerings the people brought into the Lord’s house. Sounds rather heavy. The thing was that Eli’s sons had perverted the way the people’s offering was made to God in worship.
The proper practice was to wait for the people to boil the meat and then for the prophet to go with a three-pronged fork and poke the meat, and whichever part came with the fork was the one apportioned for them. But they stopped this practice and instead went and selected the meat themselves, even before the people boiled it. They had left the proper way God instructed them to worship and devised their self-glorifying way, which did not honor the Lord. It made the Lord appear greedy to his people. It made the people view God differently. This did not please the Lord.
Are there ways we are meant to worship God? When God wants us to give him our time or substance, do we give him with all our hearts? Do we worship God the way he is meant to be worshiped? Above all, do we give him all the glory in our lives? Be it financially or even our time, do we honor him? Do we do it according to how we want or even grudgingly? I must confess that I am guilty here as I do not give him my full time or money. But yet I want the best from him, yet he is faithful.
It is one thing to worship the Lord God almighty and another to do it correctly. If you read the entire book of 1 Samuel 2, the first part talks about the glory of God and how everything belongs to God. So, I guess there is nothing material God genuinely wants from us because he gave it to us in the first place. However, how we steward what he gives us is another matter. Do we use it to his glory in the sense that we honor him with it?
If we are giving unto God, is our heart right? This also applies to how we offer or help others. That is the people we meet in our lives that God places in our path to help. Do we do it wholeheartedly in reverence to him and him alone? In 1 Samuel 3:12-14, God told Samuel that he was going to destroy Eli and his priestly lineage because his family had stopped honoring God, and Eli did not restrain his family from doing so. This means that if we are aware that someone is not honoring God, we have a responsibility to let the people involved know so that we do not fall away or be destroyed.
It is one thing to say you are not giving; at least this way, your heart posture is known, and God can work on you to soften your heart toward giving. But to give maliciously, with disdain, without honor or reverence for God in your heart is not a good practice. We read here in 1 Samuel 2 and 3 that it can even lead to destruction if not checked. In the two chapters, the practice had been going on for a long time and had remained unchecked. Even in 1 Samuel 3:18, after Samuel gained the courage to tell Eli, Eli did not seek repentance from God on behalf of himself and his family. Instead, he said, “God is God, and he can do as he pleases.”
Perhaps God may have dealt with him mercifully if he had repented with sackcloth. I have not seen anywhere in the Bible where people repented genuinely, and God dealt with them harshly. It means we should do so with proper reverence and awe when we worship God because our God is a consuming fire. We should honor and reverence God, for he is worthy of our praise. No man on earth should give glory to himself; all the glory must be to the Lord (a song). Also, when we need his mercy, let us approach him with reverence and boldness (Hebrews 4:16) – confidence because of the love of Jesus. God is our father, and as such, he is both loving and worthy of our praise.
If you are yet to call him father, friend, and Lord, then permit me to share the gospel, which is the good news with you John 3:16. The bible says that for God so loved the world (you and I) that he sent his only begotten son, Jesus to die for us, why? You may ask. Because of the sin of Adam and Eve in the Bible (Genesis 6), man (you and I ) became separated from God. This means sin separates us from God Colossians 1:21. What is sin? Sin is the human nature that we are born with. It is our natural disposition towards rebellion, and it is not towards God or obedience to his ways as he instructs us in the bible Romans 3:23. Rather, it is towards our own will and our way of doing things here in this world that is devoid of following anybody else’s rule – 1 John 3:4. We only follow our civil and legal rules because we fear the repercussions – this is in areas where the rule of law works. In most places, power is the god of the land.
The good news is that Jesus came and reconciled us to God by dying on the cross of Calvary Colossians 1:22-23. Because of this good news, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9), you will be saved and reconciled to God. “ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” There is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:10-13.
Are you yet to accept the Lord’s sacrifice for your life? If so, please don’t worry. Say this prayer – Dear God, I am a sinner, and I admit that I do things my way. Please forgive me and accept me into your family in Jesus’s name. If you say this prayer sincerely and believe it in your heart, you are born again and have become grafted into the family of almighty God. Welcome to the family. Please find a bible based church where you can fellowship and be discipled, your life will never be the same again. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I would love to hear from you. May God bless you.