Separate for a Purpose

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
What We Bring to God

Dedication of Firstborn

Leviticus 2:7-10  The Message

⁷ “If you bring a Grain-Offering deep-fried in a pan, make it of fine flour with oil.
^8-10 “Bring the Grain-Offering you make from these ingredients and present it to the priest. He will bring it to the Altar, break off a memorial piece from the Grain-Offering, and burn it on the Altar: a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to God. The rest of the Grain-Offering is for Aaron and his sons—a most holy part of the gifts to God.

For Reflection 

 Burnt offerings were a ritual practiced to remind people of their obligation to God to bring the very best to God's service.  A portion of the gift was offered directly to God.  A larger portion was offered to the work of God's people. We no longer burn offerings to God.  However, we do ritualize giving to the work in God's kingdom.  This ritual reminds us of our indebtedness to God and is an opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to the realization of the Kingdom of God.

What do you bring to God?

Pray

that with your ever act; your every breath you bring the very best of what you are and what you can be in service to God.

Faithful Sacrifice

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
What We Bring to God

Acceptable Offerings

Hebrews 11:4-16  The Message

⁴ By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
^5-6 By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
⁷ By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.
^8-10 By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
^11-12 By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.

^13-16 Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

 

For Reflection 

Change the term "faith"  to "Unreasonable Trust."  Re-read the resulting scripture.  How does the meaning change for you?

It is by unreasonable faith in the promise of God that we are saved.

Our unreasonable, radical trust in god gives us hope.

Pray

Pray to embrace the mystery that is God.  Pray so that you can sustain and unreasonable, radical trust in God. 

Perfect Sacrifice

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
What We Bring to God

Acceptable Offerings

Hebrews 1-1  The Message

1 ^1-3 Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says—powerful words!

The Son Is Higher than Angels

^3-6 After he finished the sacrifice for sins, the Son took his honored place high in the heavens right alongside God, far higher than any angel in rank and rule. Did God ever say to an angel, “You’re my Son; today I celebrate you” or “I’m his Father, he’s my Son”? When he presents his honored Son to the world, he says, “All angels must worship him.”

⁷ Regarding angels he says,

The messengers are winds,
    the servants are tongues of fire.

^8-9 But he says to the Son,

You’re God, and on the throne for good;
    your rule makes everything right.
You love it when things are right;
    you hate it when things are wrong.
That is why God, your God,
    poured fragrant oil on your head,
Marking you out as king,
    far above your dear companions.

^10-12 And again to the Son,

You, Master, started it all, laid earth’s foundations,
    then crafted the stars in the sky.
Earth and sky will wear out, but not you;
    they become threadbare like an old coat;
You’ll fold them up like a worn-out cloak,
    and lay them away on the shelf.
But you’ll stay the same, year after year;
    you’ll never fade, you’ll never wear out.

¹³ And did he ever say anything like this to an angel?

Sit alongside me here on my throne
Until I make your enemies a stool for your feet.

¹⁴ Isn’t it obvious that all angels are sent to help out with those lined up to receive salvation?

For Reflection 

Look around you.  Who are the "angels" in your life?  Who is there to help?  Who is there to comfort you?  What comes to you as an unexpected blessing?  Are you prepared to see salvation or are you so mired in self pity, self determination or unjustified pride that you cannot see grace?  

Look around you.  To whom can you be an "angel?" Who can you help?  To whom can you offer comfort?  Who can you help to recognize unexpected blessings? 

Change dark glasses for bright ones.  Look for the opportunities for hope.  Ignore opportunities for rumination and hopelessness.

Pray

that you will see grace in your life.  Pray that you will look for opportunities to escape the prison of hopelessness.  Look for Gods blessings and thank God for them.

Complete Sacrifice

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
What We Bring to God

Acceptable Offerings

Romans 12:1-8  The Message

Place Your Life Before God

12 ^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

³ I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
^4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
^6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

 

For Reflection

Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks is to interpret what is happening around us and to decide how to respond.  We are embedded in our culture. We tend to understand our lives in terms of that culture. 
 Jesus asks us to turn that around. Christ asks us to interpret our culture in terms of what God is and what God gives to us.  We are merely asked to respond to God's grace by humbly serving each other and by default God.

Pray

Praise God for all God has given you.  Express your gratitude to a new way of interpreting your life.  Pray for the continuing wisdom to follow Christ's way in humility and grace.

Loving Sacrfice

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
What We Bring to God

Acceptable Offerings

Mark 12:28-34  The Message

The Most Important Commandment

²⁸ One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: “Which is most important of all the commandments?”

^29-31 Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”
^32-33 The religion scholar said, “A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!”
³⁴ When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”
After that, no one else dared ask a question.

For Reflection 

The litmus test for authentic Christianity is love.  If one abides in the love of God and loves as God loves one will never become a pseudo-Christian.  Spewing hate can never be a Christian act.  Bearing false or misleading witness can never be a Christian act.  Treating others inhospitably can never be a Christian act.  Doing violence or even advocating it can never be a Christian act.  Loving others as one loves him or her self is Christian.

Pray

for those who are persecuted, disenfranchised, or terrorized and who can not live a life of security and peace.  Pray for those who pervert the Christian faith in order to achieve a self-serving end.  Pray that you will seek to serve the Lord in all things.

Living Sacrifice

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
What We Bring to God

Acceptable Offerings

Psalm 40:1-8  The Message

A David Psalm

40 ^1-3 I waited and waited and waited for God.
    At last he looked; finally he listened.
He lifted me out of the ditch,
    pulled me from deep mud.
He stood me up on a solid rock
    to make sure I wouldn’t slip.
He taught me how to sing the latest God-song,
    a praise-song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
    they enter the mystery,
    abandoning themselves to God.

^4-5 Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God,
    turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,”
    ignore what the world worships;
The world’s a huge stockpile
    of God-wonders and God-thoughts.
Nothing and no one
    comes close to you!
I start talking about you, telling what I know,
    and quickly run out of words.
Neither numbers nor words
    account for you.

⁶ Doing something for you, bringing something to you—
    that’s not what you’re after.
Being religious, acting pious—
    that’s not what you’re asking for.
You’ve opened my ears
    so I can listen.

^7-8 So I answered, “I’m coming.
    I read in your letter what you wrote about me,
And I’m coming to the party
    you’re throwing for me.”
That’s when God’s Word entered my life,
    became part of my very being.

 

For Reflection 

Enter the mystery.  Abandon yourself to God.

Easy to say.  Doing?  Not so easy!  To what extent do you interpret your life as doing something for God?

Pray

That you will live you life doing for God.

Work, Then Rest

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
What We Bring to God

The Lord's Day

Leviticus 16:29-34  The Message

^29-31 “This is standard practice for you, a perpetual ordinance. On the tenth day of the seventh month, both the citizen and the foreigner living with you are to enter into a solemn fast and refrain from all work, because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. In the presence of God you will be made clean of all your sins. It is a Sabbath of all Sabbaths. You must fast. It is a perpetual ordinance.

³² “The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father is to make the atonement:
He puts on the sacred linen garments;
³³ He purges the Holy of Holies by making atonement;
He purges the Tent of Meeting and the Altar by making atonement;
He makes atonement for the priests and all the congregation.
³⁴ “This is a perpetual ordinance for you: Once a year atonement is to be made for all the sins of the People of Israel.”
And Aaron did it, just as God commanded Moses.
 

For Reflection 

How do you ensure atonement?  Have you set aside a special day for the recreation of your soul?  Do you fast?  Do you confess your sin?  What is your perpetual ordinance?

Pray

Prayer brings us closer to God.  Prayer reinforces our commitment to the Holy Spirit.  Prayer cleanses the soul.  Prayer keeps us humble. Prayer time is God time.  Pray now and become more in tune with God.