Maybe you’ve heard it mentioned that the first time worship is used in the Bible is when God asks Abraham to worship Him by sacrificing His son, Isaac. But I realized that in the same chapter, Genesis 22, we read the first use of the word love in the Bible. God calls Isaac the one Abraham loves.
One Bible study technique is to look to the first time a word is used to find its definition. Here we could see love defined as that which we need to offer as a sacrifice.
And what is worship? An offering of what we love. All that you love gets put on the altar. It all gets put on the altar, given over to God to be put to death.
God sends down His holy fire on the altar and it either gets consumed or consecrated to the Lord’s purposes and given back for His purposes.
We only get one love. What do we love most? What needs to be offered as worship?
Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Romans 12:1
We love ourselves. We offer ourselves, all of who we are.
Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, mind, soul, strength.
All of your everything goes to God alone.
We love others with God’s love.
We only can love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). When we believe and accept His offer of life, He pours into our hearts His Holy Spirit. That’s His Love poured out.
Love isn’t stagnant. It has to move. It’s like light. It doesn’t remain still. We receive love only to pour it back out.
Every blessing gets offered back to God. We don’t fall in love with our blessings. We don’t fall in love with each other or with ourselves. It’s all from God and for God.
We live as living sacrifices. We offer ourselves and everything in our lives up on the altar. We live in the midst of the consuming fire that removes what’s not of Him and consecrates for His purposes. Each day is an offering of all of our everything to God. It’s all from Him and for Him.
And in the offering is praise and thanksgiving, eternal gratitude for all of the everything because it’s all part of His perfect purposes. The joy in receiving the blessing and the joy of offering back the blessing are one and the same because Christ alone is our joy. Our pleasure is His presence and we choose to go up the mountain and worship because we have only one true love, and He’s worthy of our worship.
The Tribulation 