The Difference Between Fat and Fruit

I was meditating on Genesis 4 this morning. I'm not trying to sound super-spiritual or anything, but I really was. I read it, jotted down a couple of notes, then leaned back in the recliner, closed my eyes to pray and found my mind going back to that scene in Genesis 4 where Cain and Abel bring their offerings to God. It says:

At harvesttime Cain brought to the Lord a gift of his farm produce,

while Abel brought several choice lambs from the best of his flock.

The Lord accepted Abel and his offering,

but He did not accept Cain and his offering.

Genesis 4:3-5, NLT

So why was Abel's offering acceptable, but Cain's was not? Here are some thoughts.

Cain was offering fruit. Abel was offering blood. In the Garden of Eden, fruit is what got Adam and Eve into trouble, and blood is what was shed because of it. They ate what they weren't supposed to, wove fig leaves together to cover their nakedness, and then tried to justify what they had done by blaming someone else. When God showed up, there were consequences for their actions: the snake lost his legs and became the arch-nemesis of mankind; the woman got painful childbearing; and the man got back-breaking, heart breaking labor. And then God took the skins of a couple of animals (goats, they say) and made clothes for them. In doing so, God shed the first blood for the remission of sin, pointing forward to Christ's ultimate sacrifice as the scapegoat...the innocent one who bore our sins in His body.

Cain was offering works. Abel was offering life. Fruit is also works...the fruit of our labor, the fruit of the Spirit. In a sense, this reflects so much of "Christianity" today...we want to give God our "good works" without really giving Him our life. I've heard it preached as a new evangelism...let's teach people to be like Christ, in hopes that one day that might actually receive Christ. Let's make them better people so that they can see how good it is to follow God. But being good is not the same as being God's. Doing the right stuff does not necessarily result in salvation. God doesn't want our lifestyles. He wants our lives. Of course, a life committed to God will result in a lifestyle lived for Him. But it has to start with the personal offering of self, not the offering of self-sufficiency.

Cain was offering what he had done. Abel was offering what God had done. Cain was a farmer, a tiller of the ground. Abel was a shepherd, a keeper of sheep. Cain worked hard, by the sweat of his brow cultivating crops by plowing, planting, watering, weeding, tending and finally harvesting the fruit of his works. This is what he brought to God. But Abel gathered God's gentle creatures and guarded them while they did what they were created to do. When God's natural creation produced offspring, Abel took the best from the flock and brought it to God as a sacrifice, mirroring what God had done for Adam and Eve.

What are we offering God? Are we offering God our own goodness and efforts, or are we offering what He has asked for...our very lives? It gave me something to think about.

Blessed

Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said,

"Blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit your womb!

But why is this granted to me,

that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting

sounded in my ears,

the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

Blessed is she who believed,

for there will be a fulfillment of those things

which were told her from the Lord."

Luke 1:42-45, NKJV

I'm curious about alot of things, and as I've said many times, I really wish the Bible provided more details about certain things. Like Mary, for instance. What was going on in her heart and mind in the days following the Annunciation? Did she wrestle with how best to break the news to Joseph that she was pregnant, or to her parents? Was she fearful of community reaction to her pre-wedding pregnancy? Were there worries about how righteous Zacharias and Elizabeth would receive her if they knew what was happening inside her? Even though she had accepted the responsibility of her assignment by saying, "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word," was she then weighing the effects that submission would have on her life?

But Zacharias and Elizabeth had had a supernatural encounter of their own. Zacharias was told that his son would be the forerunner of Messiah. He wasn't told specifically about Mary's role in the birth of the Savior, even though Mary was told about Elizabeth's unexpected blessing. But the Holy Spirit was certainly active. No matter what they all knew and when they knew it, when Mary entered that room to greet Elizabeth, the latter had a revelation of the former's condition. And she spoke out with a loud voice.

To me, that sounds like Elizabeth exclaimed, like she might have shouted a little bit. Had she been some Old-time holiness Pentecostal woman, she might have shaken her braids down in a charismatic conniption. With unborn John swinging from her ribcage and doing somersaults in her belly, Elizabeth too was ecstatic in the presence of the embryonic Christ. And she let Mary know exactly what they all were because of it.

They were blessed!

Mary was blessed, the most favored among women to have been chosen for the honor of conceiving, carrying, and delivering the Messiah into the world.

The child within her was blessed, the most blessed child to have ever entered creation, with God's complete favor upon Him as on no one else ever in the history of mankind.

Elizabeth was blessed, honored and privileged at being visited by the mother and her Christ-child.

John was blessed, overjoyed to encounter his entire reason for being.

Everyone has a destiny, but the unfolding plan of God that revolved around these four would change the world irrevocably forever! And Elizabeth utters a final blessing over Mary, "Blessed is she who believed!" It was an act of faith that brought the Christ into Mary's womb, and into the world. It was an act of trust and hope and persuasion and belief. Mary said yes, in a step of blind assurance, and accepted what God had promised her. Because she did, all the promises of God would be fulfilled...for her and for us!

And we are blessed, today. Because Jesus came!