How Do We Know God Accepts Our Worship?

As good children of a loving Father, won’t it be nice to know whether our worship (offering) was pleasantly received by God? Sure! Because our relationship with God is built on love, we’d want to do everything to ensure we please God, for indeed He is worthy to be worshipped rightly.
Even more, as our Lord; we want to do everything to show Him our devotion and obsequiousness.

Let’s look at it this way; imagine we own a restaurant, and one day, God walks in (in human form, (of course) to get some food. After you’ve gotten over the reverie of such a luminary’s visit, the first thing you would want to know is what exactly God wants, right?
You won’t just get into the kitchen and begin to prepare whatever you think is good for Him, No!. You would have to give God exactly what He desires to eat else you may end up having a dissatisfied client, with an untouched leftover.
So, if He (God) orders something different from what’s on your menu, you would definitely want to ensure you make ready and available the exact dish He ordered. And this is because you want to satisfy Him for in that lay the crux of your success in business.

Now, let’s take a look at the Bible.
In Leviticus 2: 1-9, you would observe how specific God was in prescribing the ingredient of a grain offering.
Notice verse 9 says:
“[9]The priest will take a representative portion of the grain offering and burn it on the altar. It is a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.”

Notice it said, “It is a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” Assuming we added just a pinch of yeast (maybe even mistakenly) to the grain offering; would it still be a pleasing aroma? The answer is no! You may ask why, Let’s look at verse 12:
Leviticus 2:12

“You may add yeast and honey to an offering of the first crops of your harvest, but these must never be offered on the altar as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.”

Wow, it must never be offered on the altar as a pleasing aroma. That means it is unacceptable unto God.

Let’s look at the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 : 7:

“You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out!

What led to this?
In the preceding verses, specifically in verses 3,4 & 5:
Genesis 4:3-5
“[3]When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord.
[4]Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift,
[5]but He did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.”

In the few verses above, we can see that God can reject an offering if it is not offered according to His prescription.

This is why it is important, therefore, to know what is acceptable unto God as a praise and/ or worship offering.

In the new testament, we do not offer grain sacrifices or sacrifices of bulls and rams, as the ultimate sacrifice of the blood of our saviour -Jesus was offered up on our behalf once and for all for the propitiation of sin.

“So we no longer offer up a steady stream of blood sacrifices, but through Jesus, we will offer up to God a steady stream of praise sacrifices—these are “the lambs” we offer from our lips that celebrate his name!” Hebrews 13: 15 TPT

The Amplified Classic version even renders it more elaborately:

“Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.”

This means what God really accepts as worship is us saying words (fruit of our lips) that do the following:

+ Thankfully Acknowledge His Name and What He Has Done For Us
+ Confess His Name
+ Glorify His Name, Magnify His Works and Greatness

So, do you want to know if the last time you offered your sacrifice of worship unto God, God accepted it? Let’s do a checklist:

□ Did your words thankfully acknowledge God’s name?
□ Did your words confess (admit, believe in, or reveal) His name?
□ Did your words glorify His name?

If your worship offering checked all of the above, then your sacrifice to the Lord, was a worthy, pleasant, and accepted one. Hallelujah!