Prophetic Word 2024 - Day 47: Worship is giving.

“Give to the Lord the glory due His name; Bring an offering, and come before Him. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth. The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved.“

‭‭I Chronicles‬ ‭16‬:‭29‬-‭30‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

King David had ordered that a census be taken of Israel and Judah. This action caused the Lord to strike the people with a plague. Just before the Angel of the Lord destroyed Jerusalem, the Lord relented from the destruction. David then prayed for the Lord to have mercy on the people. The Lord instructed David to build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Araunah wanted to give the threshing floor to the king, rather than receiving money for it. David refused his offer.

“Now Araunah said to David, “Let my Lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him. Look, here are oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing implements and the yokes of the oxen for wood. All these, O king, Araunah has given to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.” Then the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. And David built there an altar to the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord heeded the prayers for the land, and the plague was withdrawn from Israel.“

‭‭II Samuel‬ ‭24‬:‭22‬-‭25‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Yes, David refused to present something to the Lord that had cost him nothing.

I remember as a child seeing the Armenians (in the Armenian church in Los Angeles, where my family members served) bringing an offering and placing it on the altar when they came with a request.

Now, we know that we do not “pay” the Lord for salvation, healing, direction, deliverance, and so on. But for them, this act of giving, was their way of honoring God.

Of course, there is nothing we could give to the Lord that isn’t already His. He is the Creator of all things. But—as the proverbial writer puts it—people present themselves before a great person with a gift.

“A gift opens the way and ushers the giver into the presence of the great.“

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭18‬:‭16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

In our opening scripture we see the instruction to give the Lord the glory due His name and bring an offering when coming before Him.

These words are part of a psalm King David presented to the musicians when the Ark was brought up from the house of Obed-Edom, to the tabernacle David had prepared for it in Jerusalem.

Indeed, David had a giving heart. You see, a grateful heart is a giving heart. And without gratitude, true worship is not possible.

We don’t always bring money or other material things to the Lord, but if our spirit is one of withholding, there will be no true exchange with the Lord. There will be no true worship.

Here is another portion of the prophetic lesson the Lord gave me in 2009 on the topic, “True Worship”:

“I am coming soon, and as the time of My appearing is approaching, the intensity of evil will also increase. Yet, at the same time, the fullness of My Presence will be entered by those who have been prepared and saved for this hour. The intense pressure you have felt is for the purpose of drawing you away from the anchors keeping you held to your failures, to your sorrow, and to your pain. Can you not see that I am standing close by you waiting for you to approach Me? How I long to embrace My beloved. How I long to restore the divine image in your heart and in your mind. You have too long been held in bondage. Bars of ignorance, pain, and fear have served to keep you from glimpsing what I have prepared for you.”

We’ll go further tomorrow.

Peace to you.

Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!

#resolveforhim