Are you thinking of what God wants?
We all are living in a world where almost everyone thinks about what he wants in life. Both children and adults in today’s world are infected by a disease called “I want”. I am sure you also suffer from this kind of illness as I do from time to time. Those of us who are believers, and who know that God does not want us to be greedy and self-centered, need to think more about what God wants from us than what we want from him. In the Book of Hebrews 10: 5, the author of the Hebrews, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, exhorts us with these words, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired.”
With those words the writer reminds us of two things:
- Worship is God’s greatest concern
- God wants his people to be mindful of what kind of worship pleases God today
Even before the incarnation of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, God required the people in the Old Testament to worship him through the means of the sacrifice and offering of innocent animals.
However, those sacrifices did not have any power to remove the sins of God’s people, but served as reminders of the misery and consequences of sin. The blood of the animals which was poured on the altar at the Tabernacle reminded all the people who came to worship God that sin caused the death of the innocent animals, as it will bring the killing of the innocent son of God Jesus Christ our Lord who became the perfect sacrifice for the redemption of God’s people. The one single sacrifice of sin which satisfied the wrath of God for lost sinners and fulfilled the demands of God’s Holy Law perfectly was the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Only that sacrifice is the ground for our salvation and justification.
Today, many people try to make themselves right with God or find favor in the eyes of God by offering animals as a sacrifice for their guilt and sin. But Jesus Christ himself, through the writer of Hebrews, said that is not what God wants. Some people try to find acceptance in the presence of God by giving money to the work of God’s kingdom, and by trying to keep the commandments of God as a way to have justification before the Holy God. But the Bible rejects all those attempts by telling us that no one can be perfect by keeping the law of God and all our righteous acts are considered to be like filthy rags before God’s measurement of perfection. So what is that sacrifice that can make a person acceptable in the sight of God? It is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. God the Father wants us to come to his presence to worship him through the one and only sacrifice of Christ by which we have been redeemed and cleansed. Have you been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ? Are you worshiping God depending on the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ that has been imputed up on you by faith?
That is the only sacrifice that reconciles sinners with God and gives repentant sinners a direct access to God the Father for true worship and communion with the Holy God. If you are wondering how this can be, and you also want find out more about the new way that Christ opened for you to have a living relationship and fellowship with your Creator and Redeemer, I humbly encourage you to listen to last Sunday’s Sermon on Hebrews 10: 1-18, titled “The Sacrifice God Wants”.
It is time to think about what your God wants, my friend!
In the love of Christ!
Pastor Zecharias