Church today was awesome. We’re studying Hebrews 11, and the “Hall of Faith” where the writer of Hebrews lists out all of these awesome examples of faith and what faith is. Today Ronnie focused on verse 4: “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” (New American Standard). In comparing the offerings of Cain and Abel (the first two brothers, found in Genesis 4), my pastor observed that while the objects offered in sacrifice were both acceptable (God accepted both grain offerings and blood offerings), the attitudes of Cain and Abel were quite different. Sin can’t simply be covered up in works and stuff, but blood must be paid; Cain recognized this, yet chose to offer a grain offering instead. My pastor put it this way: Abel said “I’m going to give God what He wants”, and Cain said “God ought to want what I’m going to give Him.”

It was pretty awesome. Another thing my pastor challenged us with today was at the beginning of the sermon. As he was giving a short synopsis of Hebrews 11, he asked us: Would there be anything in our lives to serve as a testimony so that we could say “By faith…[insert your name]” when we are introduced? That really challenged me; I want to life a life of faith so that when people talk about me, they would talk about what God’s been doing in my life.