The Rejected Gift

All gifts to God are NOT accepted and approved. Contrary to popular belief your standing or in other words your "relationship status" with God matters. It is what determines if your gift is accepted or not. Yes, your gift makes room for you and brings you before great men, however, it must be accepted and not just received.

Most often than what i would describe as normal, I have seen people offer things to God with expectations that were not met. In these cases, we tend to blame God without examining ourselves or our standing with God. Our gifts and offerings are what helps us gain access to God's presence, as well as develop a relationship with Him. However, just because we offer a gift doesn't guarantee that it is accepted and approved. For example, if we look back at the story of "Cain and Abel" one brother presented a gift that was accepted while the other brother's gift was not. When offering anything to God like prayer, praise, or financial offering, He intensively looks at our motives, intentions, attitude, as well as the state of the gift itself. An unacceptable gift could be described as an offering that is given with the wrong attitude, wrong motive', wrong intention, or for a lack of better words a ratchet gift. In Malachi 1:8 God addresses the people and the priest of God for disrespecting Him. In order to understand this, you must have the pretext to compliment the context. In this particular chapter of Malachi, the priest is offering sacrifices to God that are unacceptable because they are blemished, flawed, or possess some type of deflect. Of course, it was already commanded by God that anytime we offer something to God is must be please, perfect and without any issues. God says in verse eight " When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. We must realize that although we do not see God, He is a real person and we must treat him as such. If we wouldn't give our friends, family, or boss a dysfunctional gift, why do we offer God something half-hearted?

Many of us would say when giving a gift "it's the thought that counts" when in actuality it's the thoughts that we put into our gifts that count. A half-hearted offering or a gift-giving wrongly is equivalent to a broken gift or no gift at all, which makes it unacceptable. It is never the goal or mission of God to reject our gift, however, our disposition is what determines the approval or acceptance of our offering. Even as this relates to my life, there were seasons when I wasn't in the right standing with God, therefore my worship and/or offerings weren't accepted. Instead of blaming God as though He isn't listening, I had to examine what He had previously told me or asked of me because it is my faithfulness to him that determines my relationship status with him. If my relationship isn't as tight as it should be then my gifts and offerings are on thin ice. Even when you’re giving an offering for a prophecy, it is just that - an offering in exchange for what you seek. If I receive that offering but God doesn’t approve of it, or give me anything to release back for your offering then that is a sign to examine what God has previously disclosed or instructed you to do. Just because you offer something to God doesn’t mean He’ll always accept it, similar to Cain's situation. Our gifting and offerings is an indicator of the state of our heart. We give gifts to God to please him, while giving an offer/offerings in exchange for what He did or what we expect Him to do. When we only offer God out of our need instead of our relationship, we then limit the development of our relationship as well as what we can receive from that relationship. Moral f the Story: Examine your relationship with God while examining your gifting.

#SacrificialOfferings #offering #TypesofOffering #loveoffering