Rabbi Schneider - The Path of Sacrificial Love with King David
One of my favorite aspects of God is His beauty. You know, the Bible tells us that we can know who the invisible God is by looking at what He created. And so when you and I look at the creation and we see the beauty, the waterfalls, the rainbows, the rivers, the streams, the green grass, the beautiful flowers, the multifaceted colored birds, mountains, the sky, the blue sky, the sunshine. And we could go on and on giving so many examples about the exquisiteness of God's beauty that is seen in His creation. The book of Romans tells us that men are without excuse. Men that don't acknowledge God. Men that won't submit to God. Men and women, obviously. Because Paul says that which is known about God, His invisible attributes and eternal glory are clearly seen in what He's made. We can't see God, but we can know who He is by looking at His creation.
So when you and I look at creation, what attribute of God comes right to the surface? In other words, if creation tells us who He is, what do we see in creation right away that's telling us who God is? Isn't it, beloved ones, His beauty? Even the beauty of an infant child, a baby chick, the beauty in the animal kingdom. It's indescribable. And David, when he thought of his relationship with the Lord, he said this: He said one thing have I desired. This is King David, the king of Israel. We know he was a man, the Scripture said, he was a man after God's own heart. He was a man whose heart beated after God. And what did David say? He said one thing have I desired, to be in Thy house, which is a synonym for His presence, To be in Your presence, to be in Your house. Now get this next thing he said: And to gaze upon Your beauty all the days of my life. So the heartbeat of David was to be in God's presence and to be able to gaze at God's beauty. So I've been really attracted to the beauty of God.
You know, the Lord said to me one time, He said, If you feel lonely, just focus on My beauty. And I tried doing it. And it's true. You when you can focus in on beauty, it connects us to the Lord. When you see beauty, it connects us to God, because beauty comes from the Creator. Now, the same David. It seems like I'm changing gears a little bit, but I want you to bear with me for a second. The same David that said one thing have I desired, to be in Your house, to be in Your presence and gaze upon Your beauty all the days of my life. This same man from the same heart, said this to the Lord: I will not offer You that which costs me nothing. So David wasn't just a man that received from the Lord. He wasn't just a man that just wanted to be basked in the beauty. He was also a man that lived under God's authority. And he recognized that living under the authority of His Creator demanded a sacrifice. The Hebrew word for sacrifice is korban. And it's translated in the Hebrew Bible as to draw near.
And so God called His people to draw near. And that same word, korban, is to offer a sacrifice. In other words, David said, I will not offer to You that which costs me nothing. David knew that to draw near to the Lord, he had to give to the Lord something from his heart, something from his life that would kind of put him in a position where he was humbling himself under His Creator and loving Him in a way, loving His Creator in a way that cost him something. And so if I'm helping you and you're being blessed by my teaching, beloved, I'm asking you today, humbly and with sincerity, make an offering to God through Discovering The Jewish Jesus. You're going to find as you honor the Lord your finances, you're going to be blessed. Jesus said, give, and it will be given back to you, pressed down, good measure, and running over into your lap.
Now let me close by being very frank. So many people support us through television, because people that watch television are generally an older audience and they've been trained over the years. Many of them are older people. They've been raised in church and they've been trained to honor the Lord with their finances. But many that watch YouTube are younger, and they've never been taught how to honor Father God with their tithes and their offerings. I'm going to ask you to be sensitive to His Spirit right now, and if He's leading you to make a sacrifice to Him alone and you feel Him knocking at your heart to do it through this ministry, I want to encourage you to take that bold step of faith and do it.
Beloved, let's love God with all our hearts strength, soul, and mind. Let's honor Him and love Him with our finances. In fact, the Lord said, when you honor Me with your finances, you're being taught how to fear Me. And you know what? I love the fear of the Lord, just like I do loving God. Because the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it saves us from our sin. I love you, my friend. Thank you for watching today. And I hope that the message that I've just brought you has resonated in your heart, that you sensed the authenticity. The hardest thing I do is to ask people for financial help. But the truth is beloved. We can't do what we do without your financial help. I want to thank you in advance for your love and for your help, in Jesus' name.