Our Worship as an Offering to God
Too many of us think of our worship as a time when we sing songs together and we hear a message from the Bible, but do not think about God being the audience of our worship. All we do in worship should be an offering to God. Even the sermon is given so we can hear the Word of God and offer our dedicated response to the truth presented. We see this in the Old Testament when worship was done in the temple by offering sacrifices of various kinds. Ezekiel was told by God to reveal to us the Temple which will be built for the last days when Jesus will return to reign from Jerusalem. It is different from the other temples built in Jerusalem at God's command, but there are similarities in what will be done to worship God. There will still be offerings to God. (Ezekiel 40:39) There will be tables on which to slay the offerings just inside the vestibule of the temple. These animals will be killed to offer as burnt offerings, sin offerings, and trespass offerings. Of course, the worshipers will look back at the meaning for each one and realize everything was done to point to Jesus' sacrifice of Himself for our sins, as the ultimate payment. Then, they will worship Jesus in the right way with humble hearts. I believe we can learn from this today, too.
Each time an innocent animal was brought to be an offering to the Lord the priests would slay the animal. Two things happened. The blood was shed, and the animal gave up its life. Therefore, each and every sacrifice pointed to the fact that Jesus shed His perfect blood to pay for our sins, and He died in our place so we could be forgiven and have eternal life with the Lord. This is why the Jewish people should have seen why Jesus had to die on the cross, and they should have trusted in Him as Lord and Savior. When a burnt offering was given to the Lord, the whole animal was burned as a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord. This shows us that when we come to worship the Lord, we must give Him all of who we are, a living sacrifice to the Lord. (Romans 12:1) This we must do each time we worship the Lord. The sin offering was given to be an atonement for the sins of the people. There was no remission of sins without the shedding of blood, and it reminded all of the people that we all have sinned and need to be saved. Therefore, when we worship we come in humility and thanksgiving for the grace of God to forgive our sins by the blood of Jesus, as we trust Him. Finally, the trespass offering was for the specific sins committed by us, as individuals, in which we trespass or break God's laws, and we need to come to Him confessing them and being forgiven. This is for the sins after we come to know Christ. See what I mean? We must offer ourselves, our sins, and our sincere confession to the Lord in order to worship Him as we should.
#NHBaptistdotorg
Tomorrow, I intend to read Ezekiel 41-43.