Preparing your Special Sacrifice (part 2)
The season is at hand; just next Sunday 22 Sept we celebrate Home Coming and start a season of General Thanksgiving with testimonies and “special sacrifices / offerings”. In preparing for this day:
1) Remember: At the Feast of Ingathering (the Feast of Tabernacles), it is partly a time to remember how the Israelites wandered in the wilderness and dwelt in tents for about forty years, but were finally settled in the Promised Land by the grace of God. This is commemorated among some Jewish families by putting up a make-shift tent or structure outside the main house and having meals in this tent during the one week festival. Recall the wanderings you have gone through by the grace of God: through childhood, school, though family difficulties, falling and rising, through harsh uncertainties, disappointing friends, and through many short-lived happy moments… by the grace of God you have come this far.
2) Reward: Thank God the Israelites were gathered into the Promised Land. The fulfillment of this in Christ is yet to come – the ingathering of all believing peoples into the Final Promised Land of heaven. Our Christian response in this season is to reflect on the grace of giving. In the wanderings on earth, we do and we need to support one another; it is like rewarding or repaying one for the support they have given you; but more so, for the sure promise that we will get to the final Promised Land some day, we need to be thankful to God and offer Him special sacrifices from all our harvests. The rule is for us to offer our best:
“… see that you also excel in the grace of giving. … You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defect whatever, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God.” (2Cor 8:7, Deut 17:1)
3) Rekindle: As we come forward with our special offering, it is a symbol of offering ourselves – or so it should be. To return with our whole hearts to the Lord and overcome any hindrances that made us stumble yesterday; to renew and revive our commitment to follow and serve the Lord, and to revive the spirit of fellowship in the body of Christ is the essence of this Feast. Welcome Home.
God bless you as you Remember, Reward and Rekindle.