Dead tired after work yesterday... 24 hours of continuous work (only stopped for 2 hours in between), every case is REAL emergency...
I attended the morning service right after work with my exhausted body (not my mind nor my soul, they had been lost somewhere in the midst of my work...) And I was pleasantly surprised when God spoke to me through the sermon. (Though I have slept through a few prayers and even when other people are singing, it felt like lullaby...) The sermon was a bit rushed because of a ceremony scheduled afterwards, points that should be elaborated was just stated, but it had a few really good messages.
The sermon was on Leviticus Chapter 1, as I'm preparing a sermon for children's service on Leviticus, so I paid extra attention, jotting notes while listening. (The fact is if I didn't, I would have fallen asleep after 1 minute. =P)
The theme for the worship service was "Praising the God who filled us with joy."
The sermon was on the meaning of offering. The pastor began with Psalms 16, the psalm from which the theme of the service quoted. We often associate our spiritual life with our feelings, whether we are full of joy, how much time we spent in devotional time, etc. The fact is that the state of our relationship with God does not depend on our feelings.
A kid played with his boomerang for the first time, when the boomerang did not return as expected, he told his father God did not give it back to him.
Offering in the Bible, unlike that in other Near East civilisation, is not for the purpose of providing food to gods. It is for the reconciliation of God and us.
Devotional time is just a reflection of the state of our relationship with God. However, the state is not determined by our effort, our work, how hard we pray or how many times we read our Bible.
God's concern is the sin that separates us from Him.
And the meaning of offering is to remind us to deal with sin. Offering is not meant to be just a penalty for us. When we got our ticket from parking, we just said how unlucky we are. It is different from that. Offerings were made with animals without blemish. It could not be done with the worst animal they had. (You're going to die anyway, so why not do me a favour and die for me?)
Through the act of offering, the Israelites were reminded of their sin. Likewise, we should have certain acts to remind us to deal with our sins.
We often confess the same kinds of sins over and over again. Sometimes even we ourselves got tired of ourselves and can no longer accept our own sins, and we do not even want to deal with them anymore. This is in fact doubting God's love for us. He gave His own Son for our sins. And we doubt if He's ever going to accept our sins? If He can accept them and forgive them, why can't us do the same?
To obey God's command is the positive way to deal with our sins. We need to deal with them seriously and it should remind us that sin has a price.
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