God doesn’t want you to come to him empty-handed. No, you can’t come to him full of yourself, and you can’t come to him based on your track record, and you can’t use your performance as a recommendation. No, you can’t come to him based on your family, your personality, your education, your position in life, the successes you’ve had, the possessions you’ve accumulated, or the human acceptance you’ve gained. But God requires you to come with your hands full. He requires you to bring to him the sweetest of sacrifices, the sacrifice of words. He calls you to bring Hosea’s offering:
“Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall! Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: ‘forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.‘“
God doesn’t want you to come home empty-handed. He asked of you a sacrifice, not a green offering, not a lamb or a bull. Know that requirement has been satisfied by the blood of the Lamb. Yet God asks of you a sacrifice. It is the offering of words, words of humility, words of honesty, words of moral courage, words of moral candor, words that can only be spoken by one who rests in grace. Words of confession are what you must bring. Place words, free of negotiation or excuse, on his altar of grace and receive forgiveness and cleansing. Uncover your heart, exposed by words, and say:
“We will never again say, ‘our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.”
What David willingly did, he requires of you. Come with words. It is the way of grace. It is the way of freedom. It is the way to God.
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You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Ps. 51:16-17)
Contemplate how an “offering of words” is the way of grace and freedom.
Consider and gather up the “words“ you can offer as a humble sacrifice to God today.
For further study and encouragement, read Hosea 14.
