6 Words That Will Change Your LifeSample

From square one, we see fallen humanity trying to justify itself before a holy God. It started with Adam blaming Eve, and continued with Cain offering vegetables to God, instead of an animal sacrifice like his little brother Abel. 

Why was offering a basket full of vegetables verses a bowl full of lamb’s blood that big a deal?  

Because the basket represented something God rejected, while the bowl represented something God accepted. The basket of vegetables represented all Cain’s human efforts that he was offering to God. He’d worked hard to produce them through the sweat of his brow. If you’ve ever worked a garden, you’ll understand exactly what I’m saying. 

Years ago, when my wife and I bought our first house, a small 900 square foot hut, it came with a 935 square foot unkempt garden…complete with chickens.  

My wife was dead set on reviving the garden and asked me to join her. One of the first things I did was scrape loose and shovel out the four or five inches of chicken dung caking the bottom of the chicken pens. Wheel barrowing it out to the garden, I tilled it into the soil. There must have been 20 wheelbarrows full of chicken dung. 

And let me tell you something, chicken poop is like steroids for a garden. We produced over 500 tomatoes that year, along with loads of other vegetables. We had that satisfying sense of “yup, we produced that.” 

One German neighbor in particular swore up and down that the ground in our part of town was unfruitful. When I showed him our garden, he freaked out, and I swelled up with pride. 

It was that same brand of chest-popping arrogance that Cain felt when he offered his basket full of veggies to God. 

But God rejected his offering. Why? The same reason God rejects any human attempt to pacify his anger toward sin through hard work and self-effort! Because all of these attempts are rooted in pride, not humility. 

Abel, on the other hand, just took a lamb from his flock, and sacrificed it. He knew that God required a blood sacrifice. He knew that something innocent must die for his sins. 

Cain got mad. Cain killed Abel. 

And we’ve been “raising Cain” ever since. 

When we try to please God by what we do we are “raising Cain,” but when we please God by trusting in His Son, then we are following the example of Cain’s right-hearted little brother. 

What are your primary motivations when you do something “good”? Are you trying to earn God’s good opinion, so He’ll bless you and make your life pleasant and prosperous? Or are you seeking to serve Him out of gratitude for His gift of grace?