Weekly Pursuit – Week 4 of August
Verses:
Psa. 20:3 “May He remember all your meal offerings and accept your burnt offering.”
Excerpts:
For God to accept the burnt offering is for Him to turn it to ashes. The Hebrew word translated “accept” in Psalm 20:3 actually means “turn to ashes.” Ordinarily people do not regard ashes as something pleasant. However, to us who offer the burnt offering, ashes are indeed pleasant, even precious, because they are a sign which gives us the assurance that our burnt offering has been accepted by God.
To become a full-timer is to offer ourselves to God as a burnt offering. The result of our being a burnt offering will be something that carries out God’s New Testament economy. We do not merely preach the gospel to save sinners, to establish local churches, to teach the Bible, or to help people to grow in life and in truth. What we do must result in the building up of the Body of Christ, which is a miniature of the coming New Jerusalem.
What we are doing is actually extraordinary, but to the worldly people it is nothing. To them what we are doing is ashes. However, God has a high regard for these ashes. Eventually these ashes will become the New Jerusalem. How can the ashes of the burnt offering become the New Jerusalem? Ashes indicate the result of Christ’s death, which brings us to an end, that is, to ashes. But Christ’s death brings in resurrection. In resurrection, the ashes become precious materials—gold, pearls, and precious stones—for the building of the New Jerusalem. All three precious materials come from the transformation of the ashes. When we are brought to ashes, we are brought into the transformation of the Triune God. ( Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 58, 211)
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