Worshipping God
In some ways, I love these two verses because the first thing I notice is that Cain and Abel have a relationship (of some kind) with God. They bring God an offering, the product of their work as a farmer of the fruit of the ground and as a shepherd
To bring an offering was to worship God, and we must be careful not to think of the Levitical Law here because Cain and Abel were not under this covenant, but the thing I love is even living under the curse and apart from the garden of Eden, this second generation of humanity continued to have a relationship with God and be responsible to Him
God Loves Us
How incredible is it that God did not completely abandon mankind, and mankind did not turn their backs on God? Just like we can see today, while the fall of Adam and Eve ruined our relationship with God, it did not erase it because God loves us unconditionally
As a church, we have just celebrated the Passover and also the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. This brings so much weight to how much God loves us and wants us to be in a relationship with Him
Our Offerings
There are very few details in this part of the Bible, and we also have no specific knowledge of what Cain’s offering was, and we have no way of knowing if God had asked for something in particular. However, it would seem that there was a right and wrong way to bring offerings to the Lord, and Cain and Abel both knew it
Later in Torah, the Lord gives detailed instructions on offerings which makes the worshiper acceptable in God’s sight. So, from this all, we can learn that there are acceptable offerings that are pleasing to the Lord and unacceptable ones
Yet, God has always been about the heart of the person bringing the offering, and tomorrow we will go into this in more detail as we look at God’s response, but also Cain’s, because when we worship God, we should want to bring the best of us to Him and not the dregs of what’s left in our lives
Categories: Genesis
