Our Offering to God Must Not Be a Stolen Christ

offering to GodToday I did my usual reading from the Life-Study of Exodus, an in-depth exposition of the Book of Exodus. As I was reading Message Eighty-One, I came across this quote:
"Presenting an offering to God is a matter of experience. All the materials prepared by God must become our possession, enjoyment, and experience. Then, through our experience, we shall have the right and the position to offer these materials to God as a heave offering."
Many times when I read about the offerings, all I could picture in my head were lamb, doves, rams, etc. However, I never really thought about how the children of Israel possessed those animals. For sure, they did not obtain them by stealing. That would be both a sin and an insult to God.

A lamb was created by God and prepared by God, but the person who would like to offer that lamb had to first properly possess that lamb. Then not only gain the lamb, he had to properly handle the lamb. In our experience, I found out that the principle is the same. If we read the Old Testament thoroughly, we shall realize that the reality of all the offerings is actually Christ Himself, the One in whom God has found His delight (see Matthew 3:17).

That means our real offering to God must be Christ Himself, but not just Christ in an objective way, our offering to God must be our subjective Christthe experienced Christ. We must first properly gain Christ, experience Him, and enjoy Him. Then we have the right and position to offer this Christ to God.I know this may sound strange, but it's true, I cannot offer a stolen Christ to God. What is a stolen Christ? A stolen Christ is the Christ we heard of or read of but never experienced and enjoyed. If we are true to ourselves, deep within us we would know whether we have experienced and enjoyed our Christ or not. 

Just a little tip on how to experience and enjoy Christ. We can gain this One, experience Him, and enjoy Him through the Word. Yes, that's the Bible, but remember the Bible is not a textbook or a newspaper. We must touch the living Person in the Bible. One way we could touch Him is by simultaneously praying and reading the Word. We can use the Bible as the language of our prayer

Comments

  1. How wonderful it is that we can contact Christ by reading and praying over the Bible. Praise the Lord that we have a solid way to contact God Himself through the Word!

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  2. I was also pondering over this matter recently. It is one way to know of Christ from "hearing from others" but it is so much different to actually obtain Christ by praying over His Word. When we use the words of the Bible as a prayer and we "masticate them", chew on them, muse prayerfully over them, we will touch the living Person of Christ, Gain Christ, and have a portion of Christ to offer to God!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, it is a spiritual digestion. Only by eating that an element truly becomes ours. In the same way, when we "eat" Christ and assimilate Him, He truly becomes one with us. He becomes our real possession.

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  3. Wow! That's refreshing to see that we cannot enjoy someone else's experience or enjoyment of Christ in the same way as our own subjective experience and enjoyment of Christ. May we not be satisfied with other's enjoyment, but seek Christ as our personal, subjective enjoyment in the Bible, in prayer and in fellowship with other believers.

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  4. That's right, we cannot be satisfied with someone else's experience or enjoyment of Christ. The chief reason we cannot be satisfied is because God Himself will not be satisfied with our offering of Christ in this way.

    In a sense, without our subjective experience of Christ, Christ and we are still apart.

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  5. "We cannot offer a stolen Christ to God." This is such a helpful post. I think often we never stop to think whether we have the Christ we are offering. But it certainly makes sense that we need to.

    This also reminded me of King David's experience. Surely David was recalling Nathan's word to him in 2 Samuel 12 when he bought the threshing floor from Araunah.

    "But the king said to Araunah, No; but I will surely buy it from you for a price, and I will not offer to Jehovah my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver (2 Sam. 24:24)."

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for enriching my post with the verse from 2 Samuel, Kyle. How King David insisted to pay a price for the offerings was very striking to me. It reminds me of the phrase "a sacrifice of praise" in Hebrews 13:15.

      The praise in that verse originates from a sacrifice, a condition where a cost is incurred. Wow, the Bible puts quite an emphasis on gaining Christ with a price.

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    2. Another three verses I have been considering lately:

      Rev 3:18 buy gold
      Prov 23:23 buy the truth
      Matt 25:9 buy oil

      We need to pay a price to gain the Triune God as gold, truth, and oil.

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    3. That's very interesting. You should totally do a post on that.

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