Not a Replacement

"You shall present these to the Lord at your appointed times, besides your votive offerings and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings and for your grain offerings and for your drink offerings and for your peace offerings." -Numbers 29.39

God gives Moses instructions about times of sacrifice to inform the people about. Reading over it gets a little monotonous, on this day sacrifice this many bulls, this many rams, this many lambs, their grain offerings, and a goat. God set up specific times throughout the year for His people to focus on Him in various ways. There was the Passover in the first month, and this, the Feast of Trumpets, in the seventh month, leading up to the Day of Atonement. The Feast of Trumpets marked a time of repentance to God in preparation for the atonement of sin with the sacrifices.

God had set apart times for Israel to focus more intentionally on their need for His forgiveness. They were given time to prepare for it, but it was not meant to take the place of the other offerings they were to present to God. This was in addition to all of that.

As I think about this a couple things come to mind. First is that church is not a substitute for personal prayer and Bible study. Sunday is good, but you can't simply take what someone says as truth. It is crucial that we personally have a living, growing, relationship with God so that we can discern if what is being presented is in fact the truth.

Second, personal prayer and Bible study are not substitutes for church. It is important that we look at what we are reading and hearing from God and measure it next to sound doctrine. It is all too easy to twist something in the Bible to fit what we want it to say. It is all to easy to "hear" something from God that does not fall in line with what we really should be doing. We need the guidance, and encouragement of the church.

Third, we need times that are set aside to specifically focus on God. Maybe you take a long weekend and do a spiritual retreat. Maybe you simply get a couple hours on the weekend to be alone in a room. Whatever it is, we need designated times that we commit ourselves to a deep and purposeful focus on God.

Men, are you living with replacements? Have you substituted church for personal study or vice versa? Have you gone about each day as if it was just like every other day and given God the routine time? Let us change that. Let us never replace any of the gifts God has given us.

Let us bring our knowledge of God and His word to the church, and let us take what we hear in church and measure it against the Bible. Let us dedicate time to specifically focus on God and what He is trying to do in our lives.

"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

To God alone be the Glory!

Strength and Honor