What have you offered up to God lately?

Lately I've found a new found love for the Old Testament. Particularly the first seven chapters of Leviticus. Now, any sane person reading the first seven chapters would probably fall asleep by the 2nd page. But, with the help of my God goggles, I found the whole seven chapters fascinating!

Its all about offering sacrifices to the Lord. So it's pretty old school. But I reckon we can learn a lot from it. When I was reading these chapters I wrote down this "It doesn't matter what, or how we make our offering, as long as it is of high sacrifice it is pleasing to the Lord. Slaughter it at the entrance of the place of worship, allow others to pray over it and then give yourself as a clean offering, without defect, to the Lord."

So, because we are not bound by the laws of the Old Testament no longer, we do not have to sacrifice cows, or grain, or anything like that. But there are bits of our lives we need to sacrifice/offer up to God.

There is an offering called the Burnt Offering. Your going to have to excuse me if I get this wrong, but a Burnt Offering was when every part of the offering was burnt in the sacred fire and symbolized the total dedication of the offering to God, being completely consumed by the fire so it was not available for anything else. The smoke was the offering to God in heaven. Three times in the first chapter, which is completely about Burnt Offerings, it says "It is a burnt offering... an aroma pleasing to the Lord."

What I learnt with this offering is that our lives need to be like the Burnt Offerings. Completely consumed by the Fire of the Holy Spirit so it cannot become available to the clutches of Satan or this world. It is when we are completely consumed by the fire that nothing else can touch us. Just like Job, Satan is not allowed to harm even a single hair on our heads if we belong to God.

Now the next offering, the Grain Offering, gives lots of examples of how you can present this to the Lord. But one thing is the same, grain (or barley of wheat) is the staple diet of the people God is talking to. As Westerners I don't think we can truly appreciate what this offering meant. They had to offer up the food they ate everyday. Meat was a delicacy, where as grain was an essential. If they did not have their grain, if it did not rain, if it wasn't a good harvest, then they would not eat. So essentially, grain was what they were 'made out of'.

So really, this offering is asking them to offer up their daily life, themselves, what the consist of. We can learn so much from this offering! We need to offer up OUR daily lives. Again, this is "an aroma pleasing to the Lord".

Now, I don't know much about the Fellowship Offering. All I know is that it is a time of celebration with friends, family and fellow believers. It is also the third of the 'pleasing aroma' sacrifices.

How often do we forget to celebrate what the Lord has done in our lives. We forget that every blessing comes from Him. Praise the Lord!

The next offering is the Sin Offering. In this offering the Lord asks you to take the blood and fat and then dispose of the rest. This may not sound strange, but think about it. What part of the animal is the most important when it comes to sacrificing? The meat and the hide. Yet, it was the least important bits that were offered up to God while the meat was left for the Priests to eat. It sounds like an easy sacrifice to make. Offer up the useless bits of the animal. But it'd be like melting the chocolate of scorched almonds and just eating the almond. Your missing the best bit! Your WASTING the chocolate! For this offering you had to offer up one of your best animals, to waste the meat and give the blood! This is a big ask. Just like in John 12vs. 3-5 when the lady poured the perfume over Jesus' feet, we would have to say "What a waste" to all the meat that wasn't used.

But how applicable is this to us! What do we do when we sin? We take the best animal (the life God has given us), us the useless parts (sin) and then throw away the meat (the new life God has given us). We throw away the NEW LIFE God has given us! What a waste! We should really, like the burnt offering, be offering the WHOLE animal to God. The useless and the prized bits. Everyone has seen the wonders God can do when we offer Him even the smallest and insignificant parts of our life.

I've only written down four offerings, there is one more which is the guilt offering which I know hardly anything about. I apologise if any of this is wrong, I don't know much about the Old Testament. But I found all this fascinating and I'm still mind boggled about it all.

I want you to sit and think for awhile... What have you offered up to God lately?

He will reward you

For the past few years (actually, probably my whole life) I have convinced myself that i do not have time to read my bible, that I don't have time to pray, that I can't spend an hour or two in worship everyday.

The more I think about this, the more I realize that its just Satan planting these seeds in my head. That I DO in fact have time. That I CAN spend at least an hour a day in worship. I mean, how long do I spend on Facebook, or texting, or watching TV a day? It'd amount to a fair few hours.

I then realized that I spend over an hour traveling on a train three days a week. I just sit there, doing nothing! What a perfect opportunity to whip out my bible and just pray. Sounds stupid but I get this strange kick out of reading my bible on the train, then looking up and noticing the person opposite me is also reading their bible. I get this silly little grin on my face and I think to myself "I'm going to be spending the rest of eternity with them, yet I don't even know their name."

And the more time I spend reading my bible, the more I find it exciting. I'll often find myself giggling at some of the passages. It makes me so joyous reading about redemption and God's grace and how He turns our mourning into dancing. Its exciting stuff!

Lately I've really been getting into the Old Testament. Stuff which I normally would've fallen asleep reading now stirs up my soul and makes my spirit dance to the music of God's words. I call it my 'God goggles'. I was trying to explain to my friend what they were and its when you read a piece of the bible which you've read a million times, but all of a sudden it makes sense. It's cause you put your God goggles on and it made sense!

I really want to encourage you to look at times during your day when your not doing anything, and use those moments to seek after God. It's done wonders to my relationship with God. In fact I will often catch the later train just so I can sit in the train stop and read my bible for longer cause I can't put it down. Push into God for wisdom and guidance, He will reward you.

Yes, i love you

This is a vision i had last week. Its kind of confusing cause there's a vision inside the vision, but bare with me!!


I lay at the foot of the cross and wept. Blood from His hands and feet dripped onto my head. But i did not notice. His final breaths were pounding into my skull. The ground stained red. Agony, pain, desperateness. Each one of the Lord's cries resemble torture.

"I'm sorry Lord! I did not know!"

He looked down at me. "Shut your eyes child, and follow me."

Puzzled i did as He asked. A vision filled my gaze. There, standing beside me was Jesus Himself. His face still with the shadow of hopeless pain.

The Lord took me down a road. A dirt path, one with many potholes. It was dusty and hot. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

We wondered down this barren land until He suddenly stopped and pointed to the side of the road. "Look."

A prostitute stood on the side of the road. Make up piled on the fake face, legs that left little to the imagination. I sniggered at the sight.

Jesus turned and faced me, disappiontment spread across His face.

"You don't... love her? Do you, Lord?"

Jesus sighed sadly and continued down the road.

Wretched screams started echoing in my head. Each step brought fierce chills down my spine. Jesus stopped walking and watched my face as i saw a man, pining down a little girl who i recognized as the prostitute from before. Her sobs escaping her mouth.

"Yes," Jesus said, "I love her."

Anger welled up inside me. "That man! How could he? She's just a girl. Surely you do not love him!"

Jesus grimaced and continued walking. We walked long into the night until we stopped next to a young boy, whom i recongized as the man from before.

The young boy sat silent as a slow tear rolled down his cheek. A few meters in front of him sat his Mum. A bloodied, mangled mess. His Dad wiped her blood off his hands and turned to face the child as he un-did his belt. The child was grabbed and i shut my eyes before i could watch anymore.

"Yes," Jesus said, "I do love the rapist's."

"But that father Lord! How wrong! Surely you cannot love him. Surely!"

Jesus shook His head sadly and continued walking. We didn't walk for long. On the side of the road was a school yard and i recognized the man who i saw just before beating up his wife and child.

A group of teenagers stood around the small boy. One pushed him over, another kicked, another punched and yet another yelled out names.

"Yes," Jesus said, "I love the wife beaters."

"But Lord! Those teenagers! Their beating up that helpless child! Surely you CANNOT love them!"

Jesus looked at me, angry this time. "Have I taught you nothing?"

I sighed and looked agian. A movement on the far side of the school yard caught my eye. Another person stood, watching the scene, debating whether to interven or not. They decide not to and turn around to walk away. I caught i glimpse of the face and it felt like i'd been kicked in the stomach. I fell to my knees and sobbed.

"I'm sorry Lord! I did not know!"

I cried out in shame. The prostitute, the rapist, the wife beater was all because of me. "I'm sorry Lord!" Regret and shame raced through every vein and nerve in my body.

By the time i opened my eyes agian i was no longer in the dusty road. I was back at the foot of the cross.

Red blood still staining the ground. I looked up and an empty cross met my eyes. I shuddered at the though of what had happened.

Me! The cause of all this!

I felt a hand rest on my back. I turned round slowly. Knowing i couldn't look into Jesus' eyes no longer.

"Yes," Jesus saud, "I love you."

"But Lord! You died! For this sin! For this wretched world!"

He nodded.

I looked at His hands holding mine. "Was it worth it?"

He lifted my face to His. "For you?" He asked. "Yes."