Chapter 1: The definition of worship
Shalom people of God. It is a pleasure to meet with you once again today. Today we are going to talk about something about a theme that is just as important as the other themes we develop. Today is another day, a new day and new blessings. So the children of God will be blessed again. You know when we are children of God, there are certain devotions that give greater depth to our connection with God.
And it is a blessing because we are going to discover how to encounter God. We always talk about worship. I was at worship. I had worship. I worshiped God. But what is worship? First of all, by definition, there are two ways of interpreting it. There is the meaning and there is the definition. We look at the ethmology of the word which first comes from Hebrew. Worship means to serve and service. So by ethmology, the act of rendering service to someone.
Now by definition worship is an honor that is given to a deity according to lus I think it is an honor that is given to a divinity. Let
Chapter 2: Worship as an offering
us first talk about it in time and space. The children of Israel worshiped God in a temple. Imagine Jesus, Joseph and Mary could walk for 3 days to go to Jerusalem. But why couldn't they worship God in their village instead of always going to the temple that was in Jerusalem? And when we look at Jerusalem, there was a temple there, the temple of Jerusalem. When you were not in Jerusalem, you were not in the sacred place.
And now Jerusalem was considered the holy city, a city chosen by God. And the ancient name of Jerusalem where the temple was is Salem. And we discover that Salem is Jerusalem. And a king by the name of Melchised was the king of Salem. We see that homage was given to the king of Salem. Service and homage was rendered to the king of Salem who was a high priest. We see that service and homage was rendered to a being called the king of Salem and king of righteousness.
Since he is the king of righteousness, the homage we must give him is according to righteousness. The foundation of worship is that worship is a solemn act that allows us to encounter God in order to give him homage because of his righteousness. to render him service because of his righteousness and something tea must be brought. When worship is rendered to God, thus when there is worship, it automatically leads us to an offering. It is an homage.
To render homage to our God, you must offer something. So worship equals offering.
Chapter 3: Cain versus Abel
There is a conditions for worshiping God. There cannot be worship without offering. How can we render homage to God or any deity if there is no offering? Sometimes God people go to church, we go to worship, but we go without an offering. And going even further back in time, we see Cain and Abel offering God. Cain presents an offering and Abel presents an offering. One offering was rejected and another offering was accepted.
Cain and Abel exists to show us how to present ourselves before God. We have to know how to present ourselves before God. Because when we present ourselves before God that is already worship when people came to be baptized in the Jordan which symbolizes purification Jesus said you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming wroth at the same Jordan. When Jesus Christ came God said behold the lamb of God in the presence of God before the Jordan there were two categories. There was the viper in God presence and there was the lamb.
And when the lamb entered the water, the heavens opened. But when viper enters the water, even though it is water of purification, the heavens did not open. When Abraham came to meet the high priest Melchised, Abraham brought gift and the high priest blessed him. That means that worship had taken place through through Abraham action of presenting offering to the king of Salem. We understand that when there is worship, there is necessarily blessing, necessarily answered prayer and all that.
So we are looking at two categories of people who present themselves before the altar, Cain and Abel because we are a kingdom of priests. We are priests of the new covenant. The ethmology of his name of Cain means artisan and the ethmology of the name of Abel means breath. Cain as an artisan was material. But Abel on the other hand presented himself before God in the spirit for his name means breath.
Abel was spiritual because his name means breath. When God created man, he breathed into his nostrils and man became living being. Cain presented himself in the presence of God without breath of the spirit but with an artisan like worship. Cain and Abel show us two categories of people who come to render homage to God. The first person is Cain
Chapter 4: The necessity of sacrifice
who comes in an artisanlike manner meaning superficial, material, carnal. Ask yourselves the question when I present myself before God. Is it a formality or is it sacredness? If it is a formality, you are in the artisanlike approach. But in order to go and present ourselves before God, first we must know how God wants us to present ourselves before him. And we must prepare ourselves to bring him what he wants.
The offering. What is an offering? An offering is a gift that we bring to God. But how should it be in terms of his quality and everything? There are two qualities. The person who presents the offering and the offering itself. The person who presents the offering must be like Abel. He must come in the spirit. Now in terms of the quality of the offering, we see Abel brings the product of the flock that he had to kill.
Cain brings the product of the ground. But what is this offering that corresponds to God's expectation? Understand that God's expectation is that the one who presents himself at the altar for homage that is worship must bring the product of a sacrifice that is the animal that must be slaughter because on this altar a sacrifice will be made. That is why Cain offering was rejected because there was no concept of sacrifice and slaughter. Yet to offer is to slaughter.
The fundamental thing that God loves to receive is something slaughtered. To offer is to slaughter and the blood must flow. If we go back to the other time when the children of Israel were going to Canaan, they had to slaughter the lamb. When the lamb is slaughtered, there will be a transfer from Egypt to Canaan. When he come into God's presence, in order to enter it, an animal must be slaughtered.
The blood must flow when offering worship. And there is also the condition of the priest of the new covenant who come to God presence to offer the offering. The apostle Paul says, "I urge you therefore brothers to offer your bodies to God as a sacrifice of pleasing fragrance. This will be for you a reasonable act of worship. We have to think carefully here in the new covenant. The real worship is the offering of oneself.
That means that when we come into God's presence, we offer ourselves. When we offer ourselves, the animal man has to die. For the animal man does not understand the things of the spirit. The carnal man must die. We have to die in the flesh in order to bring about a new life in the spirit. Therefore, we ourselves must become a sacrifice. That is in our time.
Chapter 5: Purification and consecration
Because the animal was prefigurative, we must become a sacrifice. The sacrifice offered to God must be an animal without defect. Now if we must become a sacrifice that means we must examine whether we ourselves are truly without defect but we have many defects in the tabernacle there was the courtyard the holy place and the most holy place to enter into holiness you must begin your devotion in the courtyard we had to be washed in the basin that is purification we must first purify ourself in the basin before passing to the altar how does one purify oneself before going to worship. So we must enter into our conscience. The conscience is the mirror of the soul.
Sin is at the level of the soul because that is where the will is. Conscience calls for retrospection. We examine our conscience. I will ask if my conscience reproaches me. And when we act accordingly in order to correct ourselves by confessing sins and applying the blood of the lamb that is purification brother in a divine experience I had the lord angel said to me when you offer the member of your body as a living sacrifice you are rendering a cult to the lord.
This is called the cult of the body which is the cult of offering oneself to the lord on the altar. It is the cult of the offering of the body. It is when you render the Lord this cult of offering your body and consecrating yourself that you become spiritual. Whenever you crucify the flesh, whenever you mortify and discipline your body on the altar of sacrifice and self-denial, your spirit senses and faculties will become awakened. This is the principle of spirituality.
Men have gone far to seek high and elevated things. Yet everything begins with your body that must be set apart. It must be sacrificed and consecrated in piety and devotion.
Chapter 6: The cult of the body
Spirituality is when your body becomes the temple of the almighty. Understand that high dimension is first and foremost the body that must be slaughtered on the altar. For the body once it is consecrated and set apart, it is a reasonable worship when you denied the cravings of your body to sanctify yourself in prayer, Bible reading and meditation. When you practice the cult of offering your body and when you consecrate yourself and you sacrifice your body, it is the sacrifice to raise your spirituality. For your body is the sacrifice to be offered in order to activate the spiritual functionality of your body, the cult of the offering of oneself on the altar of sacrifice is enough to open the ancient portal of the heavenly domain.
our death on the altar and the worship and cult of self-sacrifice is what the Apostle Paul called reasonable worship. Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore brothers by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your reasonable service. Our life must be a worship and cult of the sacrifice of the body in order to maintain a high spirituality. For our secret is simply holiness. Yet humans have double influence and double impact.
The first one is the flesh which is the offering for consecration and the cult of the offering of the body. Moreover, you have holiness which leads you to divinity. This is where the difference between angels and humans is. Your body is for sacrifice and offering and your holiness is for divinity.
Chapter 7: Suffering and exaltation
The angel said to me, I want to show you the evidence of my claim in the law which is the Bible. The Almighty God took flesh and blood in order to become flesh and render the cult of the sacrifice of the body. He offered himself on the altar of the cross. As a result, he was sovereignly elevated as it is written in 1 Timothy 3:16. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
The angel said, "The Almighty God took flesh and became a sacrifice. As a result, he was sovereignly exalted." Now, I want to ask you a question. Was the Almighty not highly raised before this sacrifice? Was he not always highly elevated? This is a mystery for high spirituality begins with the flesh. If you can understand this, in order to be tempted to sin, you are going to need to have a body. Therefore, I beseech you to be happy whenever you are tempted.
For the principle of the flesh is fulfilled in trials, tests, and temptations. The Almighty is incarnated in human flesh. When Christ came in the flesh, if he had not been tempted in the flesh, he would not have experienced and fulfilled this spiritual lesson. The Almighty God, the Christ, was supposed to undergo the exercise of mortification. We are never hungry. But the Almighty needed a body in order to experience hunger.
This is the meaning of the 40 days and nights of fasting and praying in the wilderness so that the tempter will come to tempt him. This was the imposition of self-suffering on purpose. God took flesh to impose suffering upon himself on purpose. The Almighty has taken flesh as he said that greatness is found in suffering in the flesh. Do you know why? It is because suffering is the proof of sacrifice.
The Almighty needed a body for the sake of the sovereignty of his name. Thus the glory of the latter temple shall be greater than that of the former one. The prophet Isaiah says he was a man of suffering and accustomed to suffering. Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He needed to be accustomed to suffering. As the Bible says, "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."
James 1:12.