God's Wisdom In A Nutshell

“Now Adam slept with his wife, Eve and she became pregnant. When the time came she gave birth to Cain, and she said, with the Lord’s help I have brought fourth a man! Later she gave birth to a second son and named him Abel. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain was a farmer. At harvest time Cain brought to the Lord a gift from his farm produce while Abel brought several choice lambs from the best of his flock. The Lord accepted Abel’s offering, but He did not accept Cain and his offering. This made Cain very angry and dejected.” (Gen 4:1-5)

The Bible is not entirely clear as to why the Lord did not accept Cain or his offering. Hebrews 11:4 states “By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.” The Bible mentioned that Abel gave God his choice lambs by faith, whereas Cain gave the Lord the some of his produce –there was no mention of the best of his produce and there was no mention of faith. In order for Abel to give his best lambs, he had to have faith that what was left will continue to produce additional flocks of worth.

We are called to surrender our best to God, which includes 10% tithe off the top of our income. This is hard to do and certainly hard to do cheerfully.

“For the Lord loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7)

It always seems like there is more month than money and to give God some of it is very hard. When we do give however, we are showing our faith in God to keep us supplied with enough remaining to meet our needs. Cain gave some of his produce and then when God rejected his offering he was mad, very mad. He was jealous of his brother being singled out by God. A short time later he let his anger get the best of him and he killed his brother due to his jealousy.

We too can get jealous. When we see others not tithing and then using their money to go on vacations and buy things we could have easily afforded if we didn’t give our tithe to God- it seems unfair. We may wonder if God notices our efforts to be obedient. The answer is an unequivocal yes! God sees when we are selfish and God sees when we are obedient. God will never be in debt to anyone and He will repay. He may wait to repay though, in order to see our faithfulness even when times are hard. But once God knows that we can be trusted with little, he entrusts us with more. There is certainly a means to His ways. Don’t give up! Follow the Lord, and be joyful, knowing that in God’s appointed time, when it will benefit us the most, He will repay His faithful obedient followers!

“Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Gen 4:7)

True freedom from worry, anger, jealousy, discouragement, fear, depression and all negative emotion, comes from following God. Defying God leads to our pain, discouragement depression and destruction. The story of Cain and Abel was extreme because Cain went on to murder his brother. The consequence of this act of sin caused him to be removed from the presence of the Lord.

We were made to live in God’s presence, but we too can choose our own way of willful disobedience and be separated from the help and peace of our Lord, as this verse describes:“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”(Matt 7:21a)

The above verse is describing the kingdom of Heaven that is here on earth and those who do the will of God our Father have the priviledge of being in the Kingdom of God on earth. They have chosen to be born again- this time from the inside out. There is a change of heart to do and be the person God would like us to be. It is an act of surrendering  our choices and life to God. By doing this, all of our needs will be taken care of. “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”(Phil 4:19)

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”(1 John 3:1a)

It takes humility to be obedient.

“True humility and fear of the Lord leads to riches, honor and long life.” (Prov 22:4)

When we are humble, we recognize that we really don’t have any control over our life. God could allow a significant accident to occur in our life that could stop our income in a second. On the other hand, when we acknowledge our lack of power over our life, and we adhere to the Lord’s teachings, we can stand on the promises of God and wait with anticipation for the Lord to take care of us, in His timing.

” Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”(Malachi 3:10)

Reading Bible promises such as this one should give us even more assurance than we had when our earthly fathers promised us a reward for doing something that was asked of us. God cannot lie -He is trustworthy enough to obey.

“God is not human that He should lie. Not a human being that He should change His mind. Does He speak then not act? Does He promise then not fulfill.”(Numbers 23:19)

Have a wonderful week and don’t forget to tithe!

Lisa