“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Rom. 12:1, NASB).
Christians often fall into a trap of doing the will of God while forgetting the God that we are working for. Therefore, it is important for us as a people of God to take time to stop the work and simply worship.
In reading through Numbers 28 and 29 it is easy to get lost in the endless lists of feasts. We lose track of how many of which animal gets sacrificed on which day. Since we have the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, we usually gloss over such lists. We write them off as no longer applicable to our current situation. We miss something important here. In the command of God to present our sacrifices, there is also a command to periodically stop the work, come together and worship. This is called a “Holy Convocation where you will do no laborious work.” There must be a time when the work momentarily stops, so that God’s people can worship. It is only then that we can be reminded that the act of work and sacrifice in our ministry is an act of worship.
Numbers 30 teaches us of the importance of keeping promises to God. How can we keep our promises if we cannot even remember why we made them? How can we stay faithfully committed to the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ if we are not consistently reminded of his love and grace? We spend time in the presence of God to be reminded that we are always in the presence of God. Numbers 31 then becomes a prime example of this. When we forget that we are in the presence of God, we fail to properly worship him. When we fail to worship, our work and sacrifices lose their meaning. Our work ceases to be worship.
Don’t just think about why you are working, but remember for whom you are working.
Rev. David Richards
