Self-sacrificing worship!
Verse for Today: Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Genesis 12:8b – There (Abram) built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
Abram’s sojourn had two major characteristics. One was that wherever he went, he dwelt in tents, indicating his readiness to move whenever the Lord asked him to keep going forward. Secondly, wherever he went, Abram built altars to worship the Lord. He realized the importance of sacrificing to the Lord which was a mark of sacrifice of his self. He always lived in the shadow of sacrifice which declared that all that He had was to be continuously put on the altar and thus given to the Lord. All that he was and had were to be sacrifice to the Lord because nothing was greater than the Lord. He demonstrated that he was ready to be burned for the Lord whose glory he saw at Ur and several times later. He was so much lost in the glory of the Lord that he kept demonstrating his willingness to totally surrender to the Lord in the form of regular sacrifices. He never stopped with one sacrifice, but kept at it as often as he could. He was also willing to publicly worship the Lord without apologies or embarrassment. He had the boldness to stand firm about his relationship with his Lord which made him publicly worship His Lord. He was always interested in expensive worship as he sacrificed something precious. Today Abram speaks to us loudly and clearly and challenges us to be bold in our relationship with our Lord and demonstrate our love to Him openly. But it can come only on the basis of our vision of our Lord. If we have seen His glory, as did Abraham in Ur and later in Haran and other places, we would have definitely worshipped Him like Abram and sacrificed our best for Him. Abram met with the Lord daily and renewed his vision of the glory of the Lord which helped him to keep worshipping Him. If our life of worship is shallow, it would indicate our blurred vision of the Lord. Today Abram and his worship come as a challenge to us because if Abram worshipped so much even with the pre-Calvary vision of the Lord, how much should we be worshipping the Lord because we have seen the glory of the risen Lord!
Dear reader, have you seen the glory of the Lord with the spiritual eyes He has opened? If you see the Lord in His glory, all that you see around will become shadows and would mean nothing to you. If we want to see the glory of our Lord, we must seek after Him in His Word and sit in His presence. Thus when we see Him, we would be willing to sacrifice all that we are and have for Him. Then our concern would be our Lord and His matters rather than the smokescreens of wealth, prestige and popularity that we see around us. When we are thus captivated by the glory of the Lord, we would forget about the cares and burdens of this life and surrender our circumstances to Him and rest a while. We would then be willing to give up all that we have for the One who gave up all that He had in heaven to come and die for us on the cross of Calvary. It is then that we would have the holy boldness to stand strong for the Lord openly without fear or embarrassment. Today the Lord Jesus is challenging us through the life of Abram to publicly demonstrate our love to Him by our willingness to sacrifice our best in this world for Him. Abram sacrificed out of His love and reverence to the Lord and his experience challenges us to demonstrate our willingness to sacrifice our best for the Lord.
Luke 9:24b – For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will save it.
Thought for Today
The quality of our worship will depend on the quality of vision we have about our Lord.
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