Now it’s time for application of the “Faith of Abel” into your own spiritual walk with Jesus Christ! What can present-day, faithful Christians learn from the “Faith of Abel” that will change the way they approach the LORD God forever more?
Simply put, the “Faith of Abel” allowed him to know the works pleasing to the LORD God. That same faith principle can be applied to your offerings to Him, guaranteeing His pleasurable acceptance of your righteous worship and praise!
Where does that “faith of acceptable works” come from? Cain certainly didn’t have it. He was a intelligent as his brother, and had a higher status in the family, yet the works he offered the LORD God came from the cursed ground. Rather than learning the deeper things of God through a contemplation of spirit, he relied upon the work of his own hands. Cain’s hands presented gifts to the LORD God that reflected his efforts to produce fruits from the cursed land of the world.
Cain did not want to displease the LORD God. He was surely proud of his works that he had wrestled from the cursed ground with his own blood and sweat. He took that old ground that barely could grow food, and was able to make enough crops of good things to offer God. He did not approach God with a harsh heart; on the contrary, he was giving God the best he had produced with his own hands. Sadly for him, he did not reflect the spiritual nature of the LORD God, nor understand the will of Him, and he created a blunder that many make today.
This terrible mistake is made every time someone believes that the efforts made in this world by their own hands is worthy of offering to the LORD God. Those poor but good folk trying to make a living out of badland dirt; surely their efforts of living the hard-working, blood and sweat life, doing more good than bad in their time in this world must count for something in God’s judgment. Sadly for them, God is offended by the offering of gifts produced with the hands of man from the cursed ground.
Forget the honest offerings of a hardworking but poor and pathetic people. How about the millions and millions of dollars that the rich donate to build the temples and governments and hospitals and charities that bring a higher and better good to the lives of people within this world? The hearts of these benevolent people are real and true in their desires to bring the best of life to people with less to live for! Surely these offerings are accepted by the LORD God as worthy and give Him reason to pronounce them righteous saints!
Clearly, the offerings of Cain show us that these offerings to the LORD God are still offensive! If the works derive from the cursed world, and are accomplished through man’s efforts, they are NOT worthy to be offered to the LORD God.
What about the quiet efforts of simple cultures, who refuse to take life of even the smallest creatures, who walk with soft feet and try to leave as little evidence of their presence on this world while making it a little bit better for others to live? What about the “we are the world” crowd that joins hands across the oceans and gives serious effort to becoming one with all people, protesting war and big governments that separate the people, and supporting one world order united in common cause?
Let’s not forget the brave who fight for the just cause, who die for a nation’s beliefs, or join a group to protest wicked controls; their efforts must surely glorify God! What about the monks and the priests and the religious and the devout church goers who do good everyday with their charities and their prayers?
How about the complicated works of educated masses! Surely all the technology created by man has brought attention to them from an admiring LORD God, who sees them approach His Glory, with their own! Nope to all of them again! God is not interested in the fruits of mankind that come from their effort through the growth obtained in the cursed world!
It is a trap that Lucifer set from the beginning, for people to be tricked into thinking the efforts of human beings were restricted only by the heavy hand of the LORD God. Remember the encouragement the serpent gave Adam and Eve to reach out for the fruits with their own hands. While some truth lay in the potential of mankind to become godlike in their efforts should they ever obtain the ability to achieve eternal life on their own, the LORD God prevented it by placing a guard upon the Tree of Life. Yet, Lucifer has done everything in his power to encourage man to produce and discover and challenge the cursed ground, and make fruits prosper to man’s glory. Often, this message seems to be the only one embraced, as mankind drives harder and faster to figure out how to create life itself without the order established by God, while at the same time destroy the babes in the womb created by Him to live.
So, it should not surprise you that the offerings of mankind will be received with the same offense that the offerings of Cain were once received by the LORD God in the beginning. Either the works of man demand worship from the LORD God, or the LORD God demands the worship of man. It can’t be both ways! The “Faith of Abel” knew this well, and supplied the only offerings that glorified the LORD God fully. Abel was confident that the works must be created, directed, encouraged, placed, established, brought forth, charged, grown, and made fruitful by Him.
If the LORD Gods hands did not create the works, then it was dead, and unworthy to be returned onto Him!
Hebrews 9:14
“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb 9:14)
The living God can only be served by living works! Only the LORD God can create life! Only those with the “Faith of Abel” that have confidence in this absolute truth, and trust in Him to direct their ways, can have works created through them by Him! That is the “Faith of Abel” – to confidently know and be moved by the Living God to do the things He wills, even when there is no understanding or no knowledge of the outcome to be. It is through the “faith like Abel” that a Christian brings fruit back to the LORD God that was first planted by Him; and it is that faith that declares a Christian’s efforts righteous before the most Holy LORD God!
