Cain cultivated the ground, planted the seed, gathered the harvest, and offered God the fruits of his labours. It seems likely that he thought God would be impressed, and that He would feel obligated to bless him. But that\u2019s not how it works! <\/p>\n
Abel, on the other hand, obviously had a different attitude. Perhaps he told God, \u2018I did nothing. You created the lamb I\u2019m offering. I\u2019m just giving You back what\u2019s Yours, and asking You to bless it.\u2019 And God did! <\/p>\n
You can tell a lot about somebody by how they approach God.<\/i> Some of us act like God owes us something. Others among us are so impressed with our spiritual status and accomplishments that we feel the need to approach Him with lofty phraseology and high-sounding \u2018thees\u2019 and \u2018thous\u2019. But God isn\u2019t impressed, so let\u2019s get real! <\/p>\n
\u2018The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering.\u2019<\/i> Clearly Abel wasn\u2019t seeking credit for anything. He wanted God to have all the glory. That\u2019s the kind of offering that moves God\u2019s heart and invites His richest blessing upon our lives. So what are you offering God today? Your achievements? Your denominational credentials? Your self-reliance? Your shallow emotion? <\/p>\n
If you are, don\u2019t bother! The only thing He asks is that you humbly open your heart and let Him recreate you in the likeness of Jesus. When you do that, something wonderful happens. By downplaying your own self-interests and giving God an acceptable offering, not only will He receive and respect it, He will bless you and equip you to bless others too. That\u2019s how it works! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cain cultivated the ground, planted the seed, gathered the harvest, and offered God the fruits of his labours. It seems likely that he thought God would be impressed, and that He would feel obligated to bless him. But that\u2019s not how it works! Abel, on the other hand, obviously had a different attitude. Perhaps he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}