
As fallen human beings, when we come to realize the actual value of our salvation over our sin, somehow we naturally want to offer something back to the Lord for His glorious provision of everlasting life. We see this in Psalm 116:12-19. The Psalmist writes, “How can I repay the LORD for all His goodness to me?” (verse 12). He recognizes God’s complete “goodness to him,” and he desires to return something to the LORD. However, we have nothing that doesn’t already belong to God - it’s all His. In fact, even we ourselves belong to God - we are not our own. Thus, what we offer Him is actually His special gifts given to us and directed back to Him. In one sense, we could say that our own worship and praise – which we might offer up as a sacrifice to Him – is ours to give, but actually, even our praise and our worship rightfully come from Him and belong to Him because He enables us to give these. Paul asks, “What do you have that you did not receive?” (cf., 1 Corinthians 4:7-8). Clearly, everything that we are and have comes to us from the hand of our God. The Psalmist realizes that the greatest “sacrifice” he can present or “return to the LORD” is personal worship, service, thanksgiving, and praise (verses 16-19).
In Jeremiah 7:30-9:16, we see God’s promise to judge the people of Jerusalem for the extent of the “evil they have done” in His sight (verse 30). They “have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears God’s Name, and they have defiled it. They burned their own children in the fire” as an idolatrous sacrifice (verse 31). No wonder that God shed tears over their behavior (cf., Jeremiah 9:1). The people of Israel were so wicked that God cited the animal kingdom as more sensible than they … “Even the stork knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift, and the thrush observe the time of their migration, but my people do not know the requirements of the LORD” (verse 8:7). How embarrassing is that? The Lord points out that they “dress their wound as though it were not serious … they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush” (verse 12). As for punishment on the negative side, God promised to “take away their harvest … to remove the grapes on the vine and take away the figs on the tree – whatever He had given them would be taken away from them” (verse 13). In addition, on the positive side, He declared, “See, I will send venomous snakes among them – vipers that cannot be charmed – and they would bite them” (verse 17). Were the wilderness snakes not enough judgment for them? (cf., Numbers 21:6). Jeremiah 9:1-16 continues with the prophet’s expression of deep-seated emotions and weeping over the peoples’ willful sins against God, for which God states that He "will make the people eat bitter food and drink poisoned water, and He will scatter them among the nations” (verses 15-16). All of secular history testifies to this truth.
Then today, we also come to the book of Colossians in our readings. In chapter 1:1-23, Paul acknowledges the believers at Colossae for their faithful service, thanksgiving, and praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says that, "He rescued us from the dominion of darkness” (verse 13), and he reveals to us here that “all things were created by Christ and for Christ – the Firstborn over all creation; He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Thus, He is the ‘Supremacy’ of God, for God was pleased to have all His fulness dwell in Jesus Christ” (verses 15-18). This is certainly a powerful truth – that Christ is the “Image of the invisible God” – the supreme Authority over the entire universe. “Once, we were alienated from God … but now He has reconciled us to Him by Christ’s physical body through death” (verse 22). Think of it … we have been “rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into His kingdom of light” (verse 13). Who can truly grasp that?
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