Media

More Articles

Article 6

Sacrificial Sacrifice

Beloved,

Praise God Saint and just how are you today? Tell me… just what are you about this Lent Season? Now first of all let me thank all of you that from time to time have taken time to let me know how much these emails mean to you … and thank you too for your constant prayers. Secondly since Lent is a time when we specifically concentrate our thoughts on the death and resurrection of Christ, please allow me to bring us some brief observations on Sacrifice and Sacrificial Worship, welcome.

According to many scholars the idea of sacrifice was first implied by God in Genesis 3:15 where God points to the salvation of Humankind via the Cross whereby the serpent would bruise the heel of Christ but Christ, [who is in this instance referred to as the “Seed of the Woman”] would crush the serpent on his head. I don’t know for sure that Adam and Eve quite understood what God was saying nevertheless, Christ became the fulfillment of this verse at the cross on Calvary where he offered Himself as a Sacrifice for all God’s people.

In the same theme of sacrifice, we also see God as being the one who graciously provided Adam and Eve with better covering in Genesis 3:21 when God gave them skin clothing as opposed to inferior leaves.

Friends right there we see how that God not only saves us but how that also in His sovereignty provides us with better covering to cover our nakedness. So then saints, may we rejoice that Christ has not only provided us with the gift of salvation, but that He has also provided us with the much needed covering so that all our nakedness resulting from our sinful state is fully COVERED allowing us to fellowship with God freely once again “as though we had never sinned in the first place” Amen and Amen.

This realization is so very important for unless we grasp the full implication of what God has done for us, there is no way we can be able to worship God as we ought to. This then explains why many Christians do not seem to understand the reason why we worship and offer sacrifice to Christ.

Friends, our sacrifice and worship to Christ is determined mostly in part by the realization of the work of Christ in our lives. Oh Yes it is out of this realization that Mary would anoint Jesus and when others complained about Mary extravagancy, Jesus defended her act with the answer that “one who is forgiven much loves much”. The idea here is not the sum of ones sins but rather the fact that we were lost in sin and heading to hell but now through Christ, we are saved, restored and well covered! Amen and Amen.

So seeing what Christ has wrought for us, what need be our response to God?? I’m glad you asked -- for only when we comprehend what it costed God for to effect our salvation, can we be consumed by the desire to want to reciprocate the Love and Sacrifice of God via Sacrificial Surrender unto God Kabisa! Friends this is where Worship comes in. Let me explain.

Most often than not your worship to God will always be in proportion to your state of salvation or your walk with God. This means that your drive to want to worship God and to actually Worship will either be driven by your realization of your salvation or and your relationship with God characterized by your daily walk with God.

Friends, come to think about it. Many of us have never given much thought as to what it meant for Christ to die for us. Yes Mel Gibson tired to demonstrate the agony, pain and torture that Christ underwent for you but even the screen does not even scratch the surface -- for remember that Christ was in the first place GOD. Then He humbled Himself by taking the form of a human being. Now that is limiting oneself… not to add the humiliating cursed death on a cross! -- All cause of you and I!!! Think about it saints for the more you comprehend it the more your intensity and drive to worship God will be motivated!

Now God having done this through Christ what should our responsibility to God be? The answer is seen immediately in the way we come to God in Worship even as is exemplified by the lives of Cain and Abel.

When Abel offered his sacrifice to God, it was a real sacrifice of a genuine heart of a worshipper. But what Cain offered was just ritualistic [a collection of substances] without the true heart of worship. Infact God searches the heart more than the substances we offer to Him. Indeed it is because of Cain’s attitude that God challenged Cain “why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” [Genesis 4:6-7].

Ohh i like the way God gives it for when He speaks, He speaks directly to the very heart of worship just like He did when He spoke to Cain. Friends, did you know that just like Cain, the people that are careless in their worship habits with God always end up becoming stumbling blocks to the true worshippers? You observe it, who complains the most rather than worship? Who is more interested in the church programs rather than in the presence of God? And really who only sees the devil rather than God in worship?? You answer me?

But or Abel, all he cared for was to WORSHIP which means, he only thought and focused on God with all of His heart such that even the “animal sacrifice” that he physically presented to God could not even contain or express enough the heartfelt sacrifice He was offering to God. Indeed I dare say that Abel’s sacrifice was superior for it became a physical representation of what was already in process in his heart vis a vis Sacrificial Worship. Now that is worship friends!

True worship involves sacrifice both of soul [spiritual] and of physical substances. Now the physical substances without the spirit in themselves mean nothing before God, for remember that God is more interested in your inner man than in the outer. I don’t desire to complicate issues here but remember that in each and everyone of us is the IMAGO DEI which is the image presence of God in us. Now this image of God forms the spiritual being in us that is quickened by the Holy Sprit enabling us to offer true worship in the Sprit unto God. Everything else physical thereof is only temporal manifesting or indicating the depth or intensity of our sacrifice or appreciation of God in our innermost being. Ohh Saint, this is where the heart of worship rests, deep deep within.

The heart of worship begins and ends with the Spirit and ohh that we may let God have all of us so that He can guide us into that true worship of God in truth and in spirit... For God is in SEARCH of such true worshippers!

Friends, it really grieves my heart that rather than following the lead of Abel, many of us have instead resorted to the physical instruments that aid our human worship rather than the Spirit of Worship! As a result of this therefore we have gravitated more into the various forms and coatings of worship instead of the Very Heart of Worship.

TRUE WORSHIP COSTS, ohh yes it is truly very expensive and the demand is just very high since it also involves spiritual warfare: The devil our enemy knows and understands that WORSHIP IS THE VERY HEARTBEAT OF GOD and that is why God inhabits on worship… and how do I know this you ask, well, remember how Lucifer was one who led worship in heaven? Then it is no wonder that now he tries to steal away the worship of God. May I remind you of the third temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4:8-10 concerned stealing and substituting God’s worship with another for a temporal physical favor from the devil!

Ohh beloved saints, has the devil stolen God’s worship from us? Asked differently, has the enemy succeeded in making us substitute the worship of God with another? Just look at our fellowships and our churches, what’s the focus? And when you go to church what do you go to do? To listen to the pastor? To enjoy the choir? To meet with Christian friends? Honestly do you realize that whilst all the above needs are important to us, yet, that is not what should drive us to Church? Instead the GREATEST MOTIVATION SHOULD BE TO WORSHIP GOD with all of our being including soul, mind and body. And if we focused on God rather than on self or the other, ohh what a Mighty Presence of God would be realized among us.

Friends, true worship is Sacrificial both spiritually and physically in that you have to do battle with self and the world so that you can be found in the presence of God. You must do battle always so as to overcome sin and self and then present yourself before God in the Holy of Holies. This now means that we have to go past the outer courts and even go past the inner courts into the very presence of God —all of which costs us!

What can I say other than remind us of the words of David in 2 Samuel 24:24 “I will not offer burnt offering to the Lord my God which costs me nothing”. Friends, what’s the principle here? Does Abraham exemplify what sacrificial worship is when he chooses to Obey God by sacrificing his one and only son unto God? And what about Mary in the New Testament, doesn’t she also exemplify this very principle of worship when she comes with an expensive perfume to ANNOINT JESUS FEET? [Luke 7:37-50; John 12:1-11]. If it costed them this much, what and how much are you willing to pay to Worship?

And may I ask those who refer to themselves as worshippers, when shall you begin to ANNOINT JESUS’ HEAD?? [Mark 14:1-11] Interesting question huh? Do you notice that Jesus is anointed on the feet and on the head? Think about that saint …. I mean what Sacrificial Worship do you Offer? Or are you still hung up on the, sin-filled, selfish, egoistic and egocentric, fleshly, humanistic, convenient, mediocre, earthly Pharisaicical “worship”? The so called religious enactment, ritualistic, imitation, counterfeit form of worship ceremonies without the Spirit of God, Power or Meaning thereof --- the kind that was offered by the prophets of Baal? [See 1 Kings 18:25-29]

Honestly where are you in your Worship Life? Does it really cost you anything to worship? And beloved Pastors, what is it really costing us to Worship and to lead our congregations into Real Worship??? Ohh may Christ have mercy on us for turning the houses of worship into secular comfort zones or social meets! And ohh that the Spirit of God may fall upon us Afresh so that we may decrease so that He may increase in our Worship!

Beloved, let us therefore draw nigh unto God in contrite hearts of worship and may our churches services indeed be Worship Occasions where we do not just “play church”. Instead may they become physical opportunities that enable us to POUR ourselves OUT to God In Worship. Ohh yes let’s pay the Sacrifice and get to Worship in our generation -- yes real Sacrificial Worship -- For if we don’t, who will????

Always Sacrificing,

Bishop Dagi

........................

Respectively Submitted by,

Bishop Dr. Douglas Muchiri
President, All Saints Church Alliance [ASCA] – USA

P. O. Box 256 Urbana, Ohio. USA
pastordagi@yahoo.com
Tel. #937-465-0530

» TOP