Acceptable Sacrifice and Worship

Worship is a full-person ordeal.  It requires conviction in love and Spirit.  Additionally, because worship is, in its basest form, stepping into the presence of the Holy Lord and because He cannot be in the presence of sin, we must put on Christ and strive to keep in Christ for the purpose of worship.  Because of the gravity inherent to worship, to relegate it to brief liturgy, hymn singing, or a time of prayer is far less than what God asks of us.

The Old Testament has some revealing things to say about the true nature of worship.  The first instance of worship is in regards to Cain and Abel.  We may remember the end of the story with Cain murdering Abel and God banishing Cain, but we should never forget the beginning of the story and why Cain killed his little brother.

Gen. 4 tells us that at some point Cain and Abel brought sacrifices to God, Cain of the field and Abel of the flock.  Both brought a sacrifice of praise and worship, yet God disregarded Cain's in favor of Abel's. It was God's determination of the value of their sacrifices that roused Cain's jealousy and caused him to murder his brother.  Both brothers sought to worship God with sacrifices of praise, God considered Abel's worthy and Cain's less-than.  The pertinent question is why?

There are two reasons that God favored Abel's sacrifice over Cain's.  The first is the sacrifice itself: Abel brought the firstborn of his flock.  While it could never be said that farming isn't a toilsome lot, the sheer value of animals cannot be overrated.  The firstborn was the most valuable thing anyone could offer.  Abel's sacrifice cost him more than Cain's.  The measurement of worship is how much it costs the worshiper, not how it stacks up against other worshipers (Mark 12:41-44).

Secondly, Abel's heart of sacrifice was not out of obligation, it was out of love.  The content and state of the worshiper's heart is the measurement of worship.  Abel offered worship out of his sincere love and reverence for the Lord.  Because of this, God found Abel's sacrifice acceptable.  This should prompt us to have the same mind among us in worship.

At the final analysis, God wants our worship to be sincere, reverent, and costly.  While most Christians would agree with the first two, the last should not ever be eschewed in favor of more comfortable worship.  We need to give Him our very best.  Only when we give Him the very best of ourselves will we be offering Him acceptable and pleasing sacrifices and worship.  As Paul says, we need to offer our very bodies fully to Him as our sacrifice of worship (Rom. 12:1).  Let us then commit to worship that which may be pleasing in His sight!