This weekend, I stayed over at UWI so I could participate in Adfel's activities. As we slept Friday night, TBN was playing in the background, and just before 5am, the Lord woke me up. It was as if he was saying, hey, I want you to hear this. So, I tuned in. When I realized Pastor Paula was on the topic of sacrifice, I jumped up to get my Bible and follow along. Besides the fact that I'm working on a project that has me researching the sanctuary and pre-crucifixion sacrificial rituals, our Sabbath School lessons this quarter are about sacrifice.
Pastor Paula, however, put a twist on the whole thing. This is where you get your Bible. Turn to Genesis 8:21. This is a very packed text. But you'll see in verse 20 that Noah offered sacrifices to the Lord after he and his family exited the ark. To God, these sacrifices were as "sweet savour", and He goes on to make a promise not to curse the earth again (Pastor P pointed out here that God can reverse, or weed out, those curses in your life). According to the pastor, sacrifice ushers in a new beginning, a new phase in man's life. Look at Abram's life, and take note of how often he made sacrifices to God (versus Lot). Hop over to Acts 10:4, where Cornelius finds out that his "prayers and [his] alms are come up for a memorial before God." Sacrifice touches God's heart, it moves Him. The question is, do we sacrifice enough? It's not about what you choose, either. God will show you what you need to sacrifice. Ask him.
Now things get interesting. She moved over to Nehemiah--a book I rarely open. If you look at Chapter 1:2, you'll see where Nehemiah asks about God's people and God's place. Here, the pastor admonished us to question the purpose of a situation and not the problem it presents. If we focus more on the purpose, we'll learn a lot more--grow a lot more. We need to understand our purpose (position, alignment). As Pastor P says, "get in alignment with your assignment". The thing is that sometimes this requires sacrifice (and maybe more often than not). You'll notice that in verse 3, Nehemiah talks about the wall of Jerusalem being broken. Pastor Paula made the connotation between "walls" and defenses/convictions/principles. So in order to get in alignment, we may need to make a sacrifice(s), and we'll need to have strong walls. In other words, you can't get into alignment without God. He helps us to make our sacrifices and fortifies us to stand on principle.
While we don't want to dwell on the devil, we do need to recognize that he is fighting against us. And sometimes the Lord allows the battles to come our way. For Nehemiah, Satan manifested himself in Sanballat and Tobiah. These men were like terrorists, vessels for the enemy of God's people. In Nehemiah 4:2, Sanballat asks five questions. Pastor Paula posits that these are the questions that Satan asks of us; interestingly, the third question is the most important, but is sandwiched between everything else, so we'd tend to glaze over it.
"What do these feeble Jews?" What is your purpose?
"Will they fortify themselves?" Do you have authority?
"Will they sacrifice?" Will you sacrifice?
"Will they make an end in a day?" Will you finish what you started?
"Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?" Do you believe in restoration?
In knowing our purpose, ensuring that we go on God's authority, making appropriate sacrifices, and being committed to finishing the job, we need to also believe in restoration. All of the things before question 5 lead up to God's plan to restore things to their former beauty, to restore us to Him. If you don't believe this, you need to go back and re-evaluate your motives, understand the bigger picture. It's like the fascinating point that was brought up in Sabbath School a couple of weeks ago: the underlying motive for God's plan to purge the earth in the lake of fire is love. The same motive that brought the flood, and, dare I say, the destruction of the Egyptians who sought to annihilate the Israelites. Out of love, God gives us choice. The thing is, if we choose eternal separation from him, we choose that second death. Hell is that separation, and it would be torture to live in that realm. So, death (eternal sleep) is actually a more humane option. If you aren't interested in restoration, why do everything else?
What sacrifices do you need to make to usher in a new beginning in your life? To move past a stagnant phase? What do you need to do to align yourself with God's will for you?
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