Christian Foundations

May 28, 2007

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.

--Hebrews 11:4

I have often wondered about Cain and Abel. It’s such an interesting story, with an unexpected twist. God accepted and blessed the offering of Abel, but refused to accept Cain’s offering.

Now, the two offerings were probably about equal in amount, perhaps even more so on the side of Cain. So why did the Lord reject Cain’s offering? The answer has to do with Cain’s attitude. Cain made his offering with an attitude of unfaith and duty. Abel came with an attitude of faith and reverence,

But before we come down too hard on Cain, we need to be careful about how we might be bringing unacceptable sacrifices to God today. For instance, every time we sing a praise song when God Himself is the furthest thing from our mind, we bring false worship and a wrong attitude. Leftover worship and sacrifice is not what God desires. He desires authentic worship given with all that we have.

But I’m afraid many of us give God the leftovers far too often, whether it is our money, our prayers, or some other form of our worship. If we’re too tired to pray at night, we’ll just go to bed and pray later. If we just have to have that new car…even though we really don’t need it…we’ll just give less and deal with the issue of our tithe later.

But it’s in the seemingly small decisions like these that our attitude toward God is revealed.

What is your attitude toward giving of yourself and what you have to the Lord? Does He have it all…or just the leftovers?

GOD DESIRES YOUR VERY BEST… NOT JUST THE LEFTOVERS!