The Offering Provided
With what can we please God when we give Him an offering? The prophet Micah, in asking himself this question, also said: “Shall I present myself before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my rebellion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Mic 6:6-7). The prophet pointed out three things that Jehovah our God asks of us, which He has declared to us in His Word: only to do justice, to love mercy, and to humble ourselves before our God. To do justice is to do the will of God by acting with justice; to love mercy is to love everything that is good, everything that is just, everything of good repute, taking advantage of every opportunity to do good, gladly, with love; and to humble ourselves before our God is to have Him as the center of our lives, acknowledging our faults and returning to the path.
As we see, the Lord cannot be pleased with immense and abundant quantities of things, nor impressed with magnanimous sacrifices, because what pleases the Most High God is not the quantitative but the qualitative. In the revelation of this Word, the Lord showed that there are three kinds of offerings that are pleasing before the Lord, which in turn represent three steps, three levels in intimate communion with God.
The tabernacle of meeting may well typify these three levels, through its three areas: the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place. It is as if we were walking along a path. The Word tells us that Jesus traced out for us a new and living way, through the veil, that is, His flesh, just as the high priest on the Day of Atonement took the blood from the bronze altar and went through the whole sanctuary. He washed his hands, passed through the outer court, then passed into the Holy Place, and then into the Most Holy Place.
Thus Jesus, having made the purification of our sins by means of Himself, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. If we take the sanctuary again as an illustration, we see that everyone could enter the outer court, only the priests the Holy Place, and exclusively the high priest the Most Holy Place, once a year. If we apply this teaching about the levels of worship, we will see that there are Christians of the outer court, there are Christians of the Holy Place, and there are Christians of the Most Holy Place.
There are preachers who are of the outer court, there are preachers who are of the Holy Place, and there are preachers who are of the Most Holy Place. There are servants, people who serve at the level of the outer court, others at the level of the Holy Place, and others at the level of the Most Holy Place. There are intercessors who are of the outer court, others who are of the Holy Place, and others of the highest place. These are levels of glory, and the fact that three kinds of people could enter the three places shows this. The sinner could only enter the outer court to offer his sacrifice at the bronze altar. The priest could pass through the first curtain and enter the Holy Place to light the lamps of the lampstand, change the showbread, and offer the incense. The high priest, after purifying himself, could enter the Most Holy Place to make atonement for the sins of the people, once a year.
The three places in the tabernacle belong to God and the three places are holy; they simply illustrate three levels. But God does not want you to stay at only one level; He wants you to advance to the highest level. The outer court is salvation, the Holy Place is sanctification, and the Most Holy Place is glorification. For example, each place in the sanctuary had a different light. In the outer court, which was open to the sky, the light of the sun came in. And just as the sun rises for everyone, the cross is for everyone; therefore, everyone could enter the outer court, from the simplest to the most consecrated, since to enter the Most Holy Place one must pass through the outer court. The light is for everyone, just as salvation is. In the Holy Place the light came from the lampstand. That light is not like the sun, since it has to be lit, the bread had to be replaced, the ashes had to be removed; that is, there was a continual ministration before God. But the light of the Most Holy Place is from the Shekinah, from the presence of God. There was nothing to be done there, for in the midst of that darkness, the place was illuminated only when God wanted to manifest Himself. We can say that the offering of the outer court is the voluntary offering that we give from what we have received from God. For example, the offering of Abel, the offering of Noah.
Unlike the offering of the Holy Place, which is not what I, as a worshiper, want to give to the Lord, but consists of what God asks of me. When I give from what God gives me, I decide what I give, but when it is God who asks, He decides what He wants. The verse of Micah 6:8 represents an offering that God requests. But the offering of the Most Holy Place is the offering that God gives or that He offers in my place. It is what He gives Himself in order to substitute for my offering, which does not reach the level that He demands. Therefore, we can say that Jehovah-Jireh is the offering that God provided for Himself in order to glorify Himself, when man cannot give Him the level of worship that is due to Him.
The Jehovah Jireh offering consists in God asking of you what you love most and substituting it with what He loves most. Jehovah Jireh is the offering that substitutes for yours. Christ is our Jehovah-Jireh offering to God, and also the offering that the Father provided for Himself. No one can glorify or please God better than He Himself. Nothing pleases God better than what He Himself provides for Himself. Only what is like God and proceeds from God pleases God. At the first level the Lord receives what you give Him; at the second level He asks you for what you ought to give Him, and in asking you He tests you, and if you give Him what He asks, He approves you by giving you, at the third level, what you cannot give, because He gives Himself. Amanecer de la Esperanza, as a spiritual house, the Lord announces to you that after the March feast the Lord is taking us to that third level of worship of Him, where we must be willing to surrender to God what is ours, the one thing, that which we love most, so that God may give us what is most pleasing to His heart. Notes taken from the message “The Offering Provided” by Pastor Juan Radhamés Fernández. To watch it in full, visit this link: The Offering Provided
