Cain and Able were brothers, the sons of Adam and Eve. In time they both brought and offering unto the Lord. They took time out of their lives to honor God. We are living in a day and time when people are no longer honoring God. People are taking God's name in vain. They are cursing his name. Speaking his name disrespectfully. Cain and able both took time to offer a sacrifice to honor God.
Genesis 4:3And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
4And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
And yet when they offered their worship to God, Able's sacrifice was accepted by God, but Cain's was not accepted.
5But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
This made Cain angry.
All though there are many people on the earth that do not honor God at all, just because we offer up an offering to God, does not mean that God will be required to accept it. Not all forms of worshipping God is acceptable to him. Worship we offer that isn't done the way that God has asked us to worship will not be accepted by God. What was God's response to Cain's anger?
7If you do well, shall you not be accepted? and if you do not well, sin lies at the door. And you shall be its desire, and you must rule over it.
God was willing to accept Cain if he would offer up an acceptable sacrifice. Cain could have found out what God wanted, and then offered up an acceptable sacrifice, but instead, he got angry with God and killed his brother.
God isn't going to accept anything or anyway that we chose to worship him. There are people today that want to come to God on their terms. To serve him in their own way, with their own rules, their own opinions, their own ideas. Just because we honor God is some way does not mean that he accepts our worship. But how can we know?
We know by His Word and His Spirit.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. God accepts our worship because we have faith in him. He never asked us to have faith in 'the way we believe it' he asked us to have faith in what He has said. When you hear what GOD says, and you BELIEVE it and obey it, that is faith. And it is by faith that we please him. You start with what GOD has said to mankind, and you believe and obey.
Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaks.
So it is our faith that pleases God, and faith comes by HEARING The WORD. You have to get into the Word of God and let God speak to you, and when you hear what God wants, you obey it. That is faith and it pleases God. When we just get our own ideas of how to serve God and how to live for God we are acting out of what we desire instead of what God desires. Faith comes by hearing God, and faith is what makes our worship acceptable to HIM.
Think of it this way. If you wanted your employer to pay you CASH MONEY for the work you have done, but your employer just DECIDED it was OK to pay you with saving coupons that equaled the total of your pay...we would NOT accept that as payment. Most would not be willing to accept anything short of cash.
When it comes to worship, God does not accept anything and everything that we hand to him. For instance the Bible says that those who come to God must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. So, it takes the Spirit of God to truly worship him.
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
If God does not impart His Spirit to you, it is impossible to worship him. When he imparts his Spirit to us we are born again, not of water, but of Spirit.
Take time to study the Bible and pray, ask God to reveal to you how to worship Him. If we do well, God will accept our worship, but if we do not, sin is crouching at the door.
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