Why was Abel's offering accepted and Cain's not? Here is the answer, it had nothing to do with the type of offering or the excellence of the offering.
"By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks."
Hebrews 11:4
"[W]e should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous."
1 John 3:11–12
Cain and Able are an example of how God wants us to come to Him. By faith, and faith alone, He does all the rest of the Work.
If we want to be like Cain, we will trust our own ability to secure our salvation. Those who come this way will not be born again.
If we are like Able we will come by faith in Christ's finished work on the cross. Those who come this way will be born again, changed into a new creation by Christ and continually cleansed until the day we die.
We often think of people the way we think of God. How many times have we expected people to act in a way that elevates us, without concern about how we treat them? When we see God as One who is at our beckon call to give us all that we want, neglecting the things that please Him, while demanding the things that please us, we are holding Him in contempt. Our praise and worship are only demonstrated when He is giving us what we desire.
It might be good to ask God for His will, rather than waiting to ask Him when we can't get things to work out our way, in other words, we treat Him like a stop gap measure when our own plans and all else fails.
How much do we honor and respect God, will be seen in how we treat others. Mankind doesn't switch horses in mid stream, we usually are consistent in our attitudes, even if we hide them, they still remain in our soul, waiting to emerge when we are not getting our way, like spoiled children who have a tantrum to manipulate and control.
Cain trusted in his own abilities while being lazy about pleasing anyone else. Not only did he display anger at God for not accepting his offering, but his rage became evident when he killed his brother, laziness and jealousy were at the root of his tantrum against God and Abel.
We cannot separate our attitudes about God from our attitudes about others. Whatever way we act toward others, will be a clue about our attitude toward God. We can only hide so long before our strength wains and our emotions and actions give us away.
I am finding many people who think that God is nothing more than a concept in their own minds and His principles are nothing more than something to talk about. The modern church loves to display their level of knowledge as long as they do not have to actually follow what they know.
How many times have we seen people tell us all about the movie they watched, full of the emotion they felt from viewing it? They were never in the movie, never lived anything in it, but loved to discuss it with all the passion of real life as though they actually experienced it.
This is how many believers discuss the principles of God. We enjoy speaking about God's commandments, intellectually engaging them but never actually living them out in life. "Knowing" seems to be equivalent to "doing", in our modern culture. "Saying" something is enough, "obeying" is not really very important as long as we "know."
James 2:19 "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder."
Knowing something is not enough, God commands us to obey, not just "know." Do we "say" to God "I love you", and then proceed to disobey? Are the words enough for us, if so, this may be an indication that we are not born again. Those who love Christ want to obey Him, even when we fail we hate that we do, we confess freely and openly to be accountable, then we move forward in obedience. God will only work in the heart of someone who wants Him to cleanse them. God never forces anyone!
John 14:21 "“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
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