1 Chronicles 29:10-22: What To Give God, Who Has Everything?

David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.  Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you. I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. Lord, the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep these desires and thoughts in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you. And give my son Solomon the wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, statutes and decrees and to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided.”

Then David said to the whole assembly, “Praise the Lord your God.” So they all praised the Lord, the God of their fathers; they bowed down, prostrating themselves before the Lord and the king.

The next day they made sacrifices to the Lord and presented burnt offerings to him: a thousand bulls, a thousand rams and a thousand male lambs, together with their drink offerings, and other sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. They ate and drank with great joy in the presence of the Lord that day. - 1 Chronicles 29:10-22

What do you give to a God who has everything? What does he have need of buildings, offerings, words and praise? David must decide what he will say to God before the congregation of Israel who has contributed to the building of the temple. He can only really fall back on God knowing that the intentions of his choices and the intentions of the choices of the people were good. David says, "All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you." It was really all he could give to a God who had everything. And it is really all were can give to a God who has everything: give generously from what God has given with honest and pure hearts.

As Paul said: "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" (1 Cor. 4:7)

Hebrews 13:1-21: The Lure of Conspiracy and Special Knowledge

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so.  We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.

Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way. I particularly urge you to pray so that I may be restored to you soon.

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. - Hebrews 13:1-21

We are always tempted to conspiracy theories. Since the time of the Gnostics and the apocryphal gospel of Thomas, these theories promise us a special blessing for those who are in possession of special knowledge. Life can be hard and frankly, mundane. So there is always the lure that says, "If only we knew X" or "did X" or in the case of these verses, "ate X" we would be partakers in a special blessing from God, bypass the lines of ordinary believers and achieve status before the throne of God. In both of his letters to Timothy, Paul has to warn to "avoid the worldly and empty chatter which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith." That chatter is the delicious but ultimately hollow knowledge that makes up conspiracy theories of the faith.

But the author of Hebrews says that Christ is the mystery. There is no more special place than where God transformed the place of Christ's execution into an altar. There is no special food or drink, just the remembrance of his body and blood shed. (see John 6:54-55). There is no special act of obedience, just doing the ordinary acts of hospitality and love of brother and sisters well. There is no special act of purification, just the keeping of marriage as holy. There is no special act of humility, just giving honor to those who God is using as your leader. I want to do the ordinary things as if they were holy; as if each one is on the altar.

I will take the author's prayer, that I would be able to live with a clear conscience and a desire to live honorably in every way. Even as Paul said, My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. (1 Cor 4:4) I want to do the ordinary things as if they