Thursday Encouragement #147

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He and He alone is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

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Today’s Thursday Encouragement:

8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts. 9 And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? says the Lord of hosts.

Malachi 1:8-9 ESV

I believe that God’s number one goal is to have a real relationship with His kids.

When you read the Bible, if you read with a discerning eye, you come to know that God didn’t make rules in order to enslave us, but rather so that we can draw near to Him.

During the sacrificial system era, God enacted very clear rules regarding sacrifices. These rules were never meant to enslave a people so God could get free barbecue. God is HOLY and totally pure. He is set apart, and because of this He cannot be around sin. But, the kids He adores with His whole heart are full of sin. So, the sacrificial rules were given to His followers. IF people obeyed God’s rules, they could draw near to Him, but IF people disobeyed they could not draw close to God no matter how many sacrifices they made.

Again, if you have a discerning eye when reading the Bible you know that sacrifices were not about killing animals, but rather they were tied to the sacrifice maker’s heart. Those with righteous, warm hearts who wanted to draw near to Yahweh and who obeyed His commands could draw near to their Abba through these sacrifices. But those with prideful, arrogant, self-serving hearts who complained about the rules all the time could not draw near to God no matter the ritual they participated in.

I appreciate Malachi 1:8-9 because it basically tells us that God does not want, and is not pleased by, our garbage offerings. I know that the sacrificial system is not in practice at this time BUT we still need to obey God’s commands and bring our clean, holy, set-apart hearts to our Abba. Today, if we want to draw near to God, we need to admit that we are sinners who miss the mark and make mistakes. We still need to recognize that God is the Boss, not us, and if He asks us to do something we need to do it. While the time period is different, the heart of the matter is still the same. Do you want to draw near to God? Are you convincing yourself that God is okay with your “garbage offering,s” or are you really giving Him the best parts of you? This is definitely something to think on and take a moment to evaluate the current states of our own hearts.

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

Check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

Gina @ Stories by Gina

Rebecca @ Rev. Rebecca Writes

Andi @ Radiant Light

Leslie @ Words of Hope

Claudia @ Claudia Moser

Keneesha @ Women Loving God’s Way