Sunday, November 11, 2012

Psalm 20:3


Copyright Ó 2012 J. Neely
Psalm 20:3

3 Remember [zakar] all thy offerings, [minchah] and accept [dashen] thy burnt sacrifice; [`olah] Selah. [celah] KJV-Interlinear

3 May He remember all your meal offerings, And find your burnt offering acceptable! Selah. NASB

The burnt offering represents the will of God and His sole plan for all of creation.  It speaks of the Cross and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross in order to provide salvation for all who believe.  And, the burnt, though it was a teaching tool for instruction in salvation and the work of God and man in the one person of the Messiah, it also represents mans or the offeror’s recognition and acceptance of Gods plan while simultaneously rejecting mans will and mans plan for history and life.

The meal offering, ‘minchah,’ is a gift or a presentation to God in thanks for the provisions that God has given to man.  It is confined to cereals or grains that have been ground up into flour and then mixed with oil.  Oil is representative of Gods grace provision.  This is an offering of thanks and in recognition of Gods provision, and Gods provision alone.

Man can live his life and come to believe that he and he alone has made and accomplished whatever it is that he has.  And this is arrogance and a total rejection of Gods divine decrees.  Those decrees are the details of Gods plan, in infinite detail, that takes into account everything that occurs in history.

No matter what is in your life, God made every provision for everything that you have.  Whether it is the date that God actually caused you to be born, to any and all friends or acquaintances that you will have, to every aspect of your career and life that you will live, to everything that you will own, to every problem that you will face in life, and so forth.

Too many people face many and unending problems because they fight Gods plan. They live on their own arrogance, or on their own hate, or on their own attitude of self-importance, and so their life goes from one problem to the next and they never get it.  They stubbornly reject humility.

Man makes offerings in recognition of Gods will and provision, and God recognizes those offerings and accepts them because they are true and correct.  God never accepts false offerings.

In the Old Testament times, offerings were a part of ones daily or monthly or yearly life.  They represent mans spiritual activity within their daily life.

Today we do not have offerings, we have the written word, we have our daily study, we have our daily or how ever often it is needed, confession, we have our prayers, we have our spiritual growth and so forth.  These are our current versions of offerings.

Your daily life, lived in fellowship, is a living and continual offering and worship indicating your recognition and acceptance and adoption of Gods plan and mandates and principles, etc., in your life.

So long as you pursue your spiritual life legitimately, then your spiritual activities are accepted.  Only when your spiritual activities become phony or arrogance filled are they rejected by God.

We all have our responsibilities and obligations in life.  And it is God who decides what those responsibilities and obligations are.  We do not have the right or option to pick and choose what we will or will not accept.

Confront or fight against or reject Gods defined responsibilities for you, and therein lies your answer as to why you will fail.

In life we all will face problems and hardships.

All hardships come in two categories. 

First are those hardships that exist for our punishment because we are not in compliance with Gods will, and second are those hardships that are there because we are in compliance but God is placing tests in front of us in order to strengthen our spiritual resolve and faith.

To determine what your hardships are, is as easy as looking in the mirror of your own life and answering the questions as to whether you are in compliance with Gods definition of the spiritual life and your responsibilities therein, or not.

If you are objective, studying daily, confess regularly, and otherwise abiding by Gods defined responsibilities and obligations for your life, then your problems in life are most likely for advancing your spiritual growth.

If you are subjective, do not study regularly, do not confess regularly, are driven by your emotions instead, have your own attitude as to what you will or will not abide by in life, then your problems are of your own doing.  You will fail over and over, again and again in life until you either wake up and change or until the date of your death.