He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; and to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation (Yeshuah) of God. Psalm 50:23.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלוהים) says:
There is something I want to teach you today that is absolutely mandatory for you to know and understand if you want to protect yourself from torment, regret, remorse, shame, guilt, depression, and the devastating effects these things have on you physically and mentally. No amount of tithing or offerings from your own wealth or possession can take care of this, even if you were to give your body to be burned, it would not relieve you. I must give you the offering so that your heart may be at peace. It is the offering of My Son as your sin offering and guilt (shame) offering. Yes, I Myself have provided the sacrificial offering for you that you must use to protect yourself from destroying yourself.
Your sins, omissions, rebellion, financial failures, the ways you have failed Me, others, and yourself, broken relationships, failed marriages, estranged children, betrayal, abuses, addictions—all these things are too heavy for you to bear, and they will take you down in defeat, crawling like a worm in the ground. But Jesus lifted all that off you, took it in his own flesh, and took the punishment of it for you. It is no longer your fault. He took it and set you free.
But I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; they separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, “Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.” Psalm 22:6-8.
He took your sins and faults and in exchange He gave you His righteousness. And by the blood of His cross He made peace for you with Me. He made you holy, blameless and without reproach before Me. You once stood in the place of the sinner, even perhaps the intentional, premeditated sinner, but now in Jesus you stand as a saint of the Kingdom, blood washed and debt free.
Jesus paid it all. He is your offering before Me for sin, shame, guilt, blame. I Myself provided the Lamb for the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering. Jesus has paid back all you owed and more. You have the double portion.
Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. Genesis 22:7-8.
The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29.
Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” John 8:56.
He is your offering before Me. In preparation for My singular justice, as David called it, I taught My people under the Old Covenant to rely upon a shadow of the good things to come in Jesus so they would understand the beauty of the unblemished sacrificial offering when Jesus came. But to explain this let Me first tell you more about the sacrificial offerings that were from the beginning but were codified in the Mosaic law for the nation of My people Israel.
There are tithes, which in amount are fixed and mandatory, and are easily calculated, and there are offerings of which there are mandatory and voluntary ones. From the beginning I spoke of the burnt offering, both Noah and Abraham offered such sacrifices. Genesis 8:20; Genesis 22:2. But when the offerings were codified in the law of the nation of Israel under the Mosaic Covenant, which was between Me, Moses, and all the people of Israel, there were five offerings, the number of grace, and one has three offerings within it, making the total the number of of perfection and of new beginnings, depending how your count it.
So let us consider these offerings, for they are a shadow of what is to come, but their substance belongs to the Messiah, Jesus, your Lord and Savior. Colossians 2:17. For it is impossible for the blood of lambs, bulls, and goats to take away sins, Hebrews 10:4 (these were like credit card payments, but the real debt had to be paid at some point), but you have been sanctified once and for all through the offering of the body of Jesus your Messiah (paid in full, satisfying all the payments on credit). Hebrews 10:10.
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Colossians 2:13-14.
The five offerings were the burnt offering, the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. Each sacrificial offering served a specific purpose and function. The burnt, grain, and peace offerings were voluntary. The sin and guilt (shame) offerings were mandatory.
The purpose of these offerings, which were above and beyond the tithe, was to cover the sins of the people before Me so they would be credited with righteousness and stay in My book of life despite their sins. But these offerings only covered unintentional sins, sins of weakness. Premeditated and calculated violations of My commandments brought death. It was like the difference you make today in manslaughter and murder.
Jesus, as He offered Himself as your burnt offering, peace offering, sin offering, and guilt offering before Me upon the Cross qualified all peoples for His sacrifice no matter what their sins when He spoke out to Me, “Father, forgive them THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.” This made those represented there, the gentiles (Romans), the Jews, and the Church (the believers present such as John and Mary) all qualify for the sin offering as unintentional sinners.
Joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:11-14.
I gave you Jesus who became your sin offering and your guilt offering before Me. The guilt offering was for sins against Me or someone else that required reimbursement and recompense. It was also a cleansing offering from defiling sins or physical illnesses and conditions. He is the propitiation for your sins. He took all your sins, faults, failures, illnesses, pains, grief, and sorrows as His own, upon His own flesh as one like you in all things but sin, and gave you His righteousness, His shalom peace, and His joy. You have complete forgiveness and freedom from all guilt and shame because of your perfect offering, Jesus, the Lamb. I Myself provided the offering to take away the sins of the world. Keep your eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of your faith. I have approved your Lamb as sinless and unblemished and thus qualified you for forgiveness of your sins through, by and in Him. You have only to receive Him.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 1 John 2:1-2.
Jesus is also your burnt offering, grain offering, and peace offering. The burnt offering, though voluntary, was for sin. It was an expression of gratitude for My forgiveness and at the same time receiving that forgiveness by transferring the unintentional sins of the one making the offering to the unblemished lamb or bull that he offered from his flock or herd. The burnt offering left nothing but ashes behind, which were taken outside the camp and released. In Jesus, your burnt offering, I give you beauty for your ashes.
The grain offering was offered in gratitude for the provision of your sustenance from the successful growing of crops and an abundant harvest as well as for healing of your body and the atonement for sin. In the grain offering unleavened bread was offered and broken to bits in atonement, Leviticus 2:6, and for the healing of the sinner. Leviticus 14:2. And the priests were given to eat the portion that did not go up in smoke. Jesus is your grain offering as expressed in the bread of His body in the Covenant meal of communion, the broken body given you by which you are healed and made whole. It is His body GIVEN FOR YOU. Priests could partake of this offering, but they had to eat it within the tabernacle.
The Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.
By the peace offering: the sinner was reconciled with Me by the atoning blood of the lamb of sacrifice, and the wave (waving the breast horizontally) and heave offering (raising the thigh vertically) were then offered by the priest officiating, forming the sign of the cross. Exodus 29:26-28; Leviticus 10:15: Numbers 6:20. Jesus made peace between Me and you by the blood of the cross. The peace offering consisted of the freewill offering (just to express your love for Me), the votive offering (in fulfillment of a vow made personally to Me by you), and the thanksgiving offering (also known as a fellowship offering whereby you showed your gratitude to Me and shared it with others as well). It involved the best unblemished animal from the herd and various grain and bread offerings. This sacrifice expressed thanksgiving, but it also emphasized fellowship, as it was followed by a shared meal.
In all these sacrifices, the priest was not examining the sinner to see if he qualified by good works or acts of penance to have his sins covered but the priest was examining the quality of the lamb, bull, or goat (assume a lamb for now) that the sinner brought. If the offering was unblemished and perfect then the sinner, the owner of the unblemished lamb, qualified for the forgiveness. The sinner would then place his hand on the head of his unblemished lamb and there would be a transfer of his sin to the lamb and the lamb’s purity to the sinner, thus an exchange took place. The lamb was then killed, and its blood poured out on the altar in atonement for the sin. The lamb was then roasted upon the bronze altar of judgment and either completely reduced to ashes (burnt offering) or taken to be eaten by the priests or the sinner depending on the type of sacrifice.
Do you see? If you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, He is My gift to you so that by faith in Him you will not perish but have eternal life. I have placed ALL your sins on Him and accounted His purity and righteousness to you. He never sinned and He makes it as if you never had either when you exchange your sins for His righteousness. He then died in atonement to Divine Justice for your sins. Your sins are not just covered over by His blood they are totally washed away as if they had never been. He has paid in full the debt for sin that you owed Me, He gave the eternal life He had in the flesh for the one you lost in Adam, for Adam murdered that eternal life by premeditated murder, for he knew what he was doing though Eve was tricked.
When you come to pray, do not come before Me empty handed, bring Jesus, your spotless Lamb, and know I have accepted Him and raised Him from the dead with all your sins gone. I have given you beauty for your ashes. You are holy and blameless before Me. Your Lamb is perfect beyond perfection.
For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. Hebrews 7:26-27.
What a wonderful gift to offer Me. And what a wonderful gift I have given to you in Him. And I gave Him to you to ever intercede for you to save you to the uttermost forever, will I not give you everything with Him?
Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save to the uttermost forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:24-25.
My blessings are upon the head of the righteous, and in Him you are righteous with My own righteousness.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Never tell Me you do not have an offering to bring Me, you do. The best has been provided for you; you only need to receive Him, and you will never come empty handed before Me again, He is with you always, Christ in you, your hope of glory.
“Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) and at the Feast of Tabernacles, and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you.” Deuteronomy 16:16-17.
Now listen to Me. If you are burdened with guilt and shame for sins you have done, repent and confess those sins to Me and I am faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. Why? You have the Lamb and He already paid all for you. Your sins and offenses are gone, like the mist in the morning sun, borne by Him who knew no sin but became sin for you. I don’t ever want to hear about those sins again. Your sins and offenses I remember no more. The Holy Spirit testifies that to you and He is the Spirit of truth. Hebrews 10:17, John 14:17; John 16:13.
If you keep mourning over your sins, you are calling the Holy Spirit a liar and that is a very dangerous thing to do. You dishonor Me if you will not forgive yourself when I have forgiven you and put all your faults on Jesus. It cost Me and Him so much to do this for you, would you belittle so great a salvation? Honor Me by receiving such a great gift with joy and thanksgiving. The measure and standard of judgment you use, I must use back on you, for that is a spiritual law, and if you do not let go of that past sin but torture yourself with it, or even with new ones you have done today that you have repented of and confessed to Me in honesty and truth, then I must use that same standard on you. Be careful when you act like the blood of Jesus is not enough to remove your sins, that judgment then is the standard I must use on you. Selah.
Do not torment and torture yourself any longer. It is no longer your fault. He took it and I took care of it. The chastisement to make you whole fell on Him. Isaiah 53:5.
And here is where the thanksgiving offering comes in. Offer it NOW and every day. It is a wonderful offering and I will bless you. And make it loud, with lifted hands, and shouts of joy.
And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, and I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD. Psalm 27:6.
He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; and to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation (Yeshuah) of God. Psalm 50:23.
Above the tithe, you can honor the great gift of Jesus with offerings of thanksgiving. Make it a double portion. But whatever you purpose in your heart to give, give it with joy. A cheerful heart is good like medicine. And that is why I love a cheerful giver. They understand that Jesus willingly gave Himself for you, despising the shame, for the JOY that lay before Him of saving you to the uttermost forever. And that should give you joy too. Love gives you joy all the day. Love does not just give the leftovers.
I love you. I give you the best and nothing less. Wait until you see the Kingdom of Heaven! It is far beyond all you can ask or imagine. You will wish you had given Me more when you had the opportunity to do so when you see all I have for you forever. Live pure. But if you should fall into sin, you have an offering to bring Me and I will accept Him, your perfect Lamb, My Son, your Redeemer.