Our “Best” is our “Offering”

Happy New Year and Thank God for this New Year full of hope, full of goals, full of plans and full of expectations.  Success is surely guaranteed by faith.

Life is beautiful.  I am in love with life that is full of endless possibilities as long as one decides, focuses and determines to do good for God, for others and for oneself.  The means and the tools that we use for our good deeds are also numerous, endless and unlimited.  For the purpose of this blog, I am using my writing skills and abilities.  When I play music, I use my instrument and my playing skills.  If I were a chef or a cook, I would use my cooking skills and my recipes.  The hairdresser employs their stylist's methods and their designing skills to create wonders on people’s hair and to make them look their best.  And the list goes on endlessly.  There is nothing too low, nothing too pejorative, nothing too small, nothing too big or nothing too high when come the time and the opportunity to help one another, to serve and to render service(s) to one another.  We use the instrument of our divinely-entrusted abilities as a means and as a token of giving, of mutual exchange, of reciprocal trade to the highest quality possible.  In some way, somehow, in whatever form or format, we help or serve someone else as we benefit from someone else’s services, abilities, profession, trade, calling, compassion, encouragement and support.

It is noble to do our best, to offer our best and to give our best in all cases and at all times. Our best is the reflection of who we are on the inside.  It is the genuine purity of our “God-created” nature (unless it has become corrupted or defiled by negative input or by bad influences).  God creates only the best.  That is why He dearly expects the best to come out of all of us at all times, which is an inherent component of high quality.  Our offering to God and to one another should simply and truly reflect the best in our nature and should not be tinted with mediocrity, with pettiness, with selfishness, with malice or with wrong motive.

Two brothers (*1), in the Bible, brought their offering to the LORD.  The older brother, the soil worker, brought some fruits of the soil to the LORD.  The younger brother, the flock keeper, also brought offering to the LORD: fat portions from some of the firstborn from his flock.  The LORD looked with favor on the younger brother and his offering, but on the older brother and his offering He did not look with favor. So the older brother was very angry, and his face was downcast.   And, since the older brother could not take it and could not live with the fact that his younger brother has earned greater favor from the LORD, he decided to just kill the younger brother instead of managing his anger and waiting for the next opportunity to impress the LORD and to touch the LORD’s heart with his subsequent offering.

All of us humans have received great favors, great healing, amazing blessings, great protection, insight, revelations and guidance from God.  In our excitement, in our joy, in our impulsive act of giving back, in our state of being overjoyed, some of us choose to give passionately to God as a proof of high appreciation, as an act of reverential thanksgiving, or as an act of opulent gestures of worship to God.  The act of thanksgiving may take multiple forms which also include manifesting philanthropic kindness towards humanity, supporting a worthy humanitarian cause, or being a Good Samaritan to others as needed.  Opulent offering to God’s eyes may also take the form of presenting our “absolute best” while we are in our lowest state in our life, and out of obedient and faithful giving to the LORD (*2).  It is a pure and impulsive love expression that comes straight from the heart.

I, the writer of this blog, am the recipient of enormous protective favors from God which include: [1] my life being spared from several catastrophic car accidents out of which I escaped without a scratch on my body while my cars are totally wrecked, [2] my face and my head being second-degree burned from hot fluid/antifreeze splashing out of the radiator overflow tank of my car, of which God has healed me and gave me a brand new face (*3) with my full complexion, a little darker, but not spotted or disfigured as it was supposed to be as per the usual circumstances.  These are just a few cases that I decide to name in this blog. 

Out of these events, and as a lifestyle of thanksgiving to God, I spent many years doing volunteering work.  Later, I became an evangelical Christian with the full spectrum of activities and involvement, including few “part-time” missionary trips abroad, to name a few.

Now, if my thanksgiving gestures towards God were to become the object of envy and jealousy to someone else who does not know my story or who does not understand my real motivation towards thanksgiving, it would have been very outrageous and very insulting to the LORD that would become exceedingly angry and that would deal personally against my covetous neighbor or against my envious and jealous brother.  That is why we must strive not to envy someone else’s success, blessings, achievement, status, prominence, wealth which may be their divine recompense for their great love for God, and their heavenly reward for their act of obedient kindness to others and of passionate worship to God.  When God says about you:  “This is my Son (or Daughter); whom I love, with him I am well pleased” (*4), nothing is too big and no status is too high for Him not to give to you.  Therefore, His granted blessings into your life are automatically and unstoppably overflowing.

Surprisingly, the insecurity of being envied for who you are and for what you have is a serious threat and is a real impediment to progress, to advancement, to creativity, to peace, to healthy interaction and to productivity.  Regardless of which side you find yourself to be, the blessed side or the envying side, just turn your focus towards God to either protect you, or to heal you from your sickening envy and out of your withering jealousy.  People pray fervently and study hard to become somebody, people also ask God passionately and work hard to earn and to acquire their properties, their possessions, their money and their wealth.  Therefore, to covet and to envy someone else out of jealousy to the point of either disturbing their peaceful lifestyle, either endangering their life, either vandalizing, sabotaging their properties, their possessions, their rightful belongings so that they have to keep on fixing, repairing, replacing stuff, and constantly spending and "losing" money as opposed to truly saving money and ensuring their real financial advancement, is a flagrant insult towards God and a direct assault against God Himself who will deal with it personally.  The envious person cannot bear divine fruit (*5) of love, cannot progress, and cannot reap true success, unless they truly repent for their destructive actions.

Someone’s “Best Offering” to God, to others, to a worthy cause or to society in general should not be the object of somebody else’s envy and jealousy.  God is good and merciful.  His Protection (to the person being envied) and His Healing (to the envious person) are available to whoever cries out earnestly to Him.  God is the Giver of Life and the “Birth-Giver” of a “New Life”.  Therefore, we must seize the moment and grab the opportunity to deeply cry out for help from God as the blind man (Bartimaeus) did in the New Testament (*6).  The victorious result and the glorious outcome are freely ours to enjoy fully.  It is all up to us to decide.  Therefore, Do Not Delay.  Let Us Go For It and Have Peace, Champions!

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(*1) Ref.:  The Holy Bible/ Genesis 4:1-15 (The story of Cain and Abel).

(*2) Ref.:  The Holy Bible/ Mark 12:41-44 (The story of the widow’s offering).

(*3) Ref.:  Personal Note:  I appreciate the latter look of my face more than the

               former.  It is a divine miracle.                      

(*4) Ref.:  The Holy Bible/ Matthew 3:17 / Full context, Matthew 3:13-17.
               Note:  The word "Daughter" is added by the blog writer for the broad 
               individualization of the application of the quotation.             

(*5) Ref.:  The Holy Bible/ Matthew 21:19 / Full context: Matthew 21:18-21.

(*6) Ref.:  The Holy Bible/ Mark 10:46-52.
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Special Notes:  

#1.  The "Reference" list above is given solely for information purposes to the avid, the curious and the eager minds like us who like to do research, who want to deepen their knowledge and to widen their understanding in their leisure time.  Life is fun.  Therefore, let us have some fun while digging for, while learning and while sharing the right information.

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