I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. Psalm 50:9-10
“Why make a priority of beauty in worship? Because it is what God deserves. He is of ultimate worth and deserves to receive from us as much honor as we can give. From the first, He directed His people to worship Him with gold, incense, embroidery, carved wood, vestments, “a golden bell and a pomegranate.”
Yes, He deserves it—but it’s just as true that we need to give it. God doesn’t need these costly things, for He already owns everything that is. It is we who need to offer such things, we need to keep giving Him beauty and honor, so we can understand what worship means. Beauty makes things happen within us that can’t be conveyed in words. Beauty sets the heart aright and opens it to God.”
Frederica Mathewes-Green in Welcome to the Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity (Brewster: Paraclete, 2015) 56. Special thanks to my dear friend, Gregg Capin, for alerting me to this book.
God calls us to give to Him not because He needs it, but because when we pause, worship Him, and make our offerings, we celebrate His beauty and give Him honor.
And we actually discover in the process more of His greatness. We become overcome with gratitude. Worship transforms us, but only when we hold nothing back.
How will your generosity proclaim God’s beauty and majesty today? What can you do to honor Him with all He has so abundantly and graciously supplied to you?