Maybe there has been a time in your life when you had to pay for something that was very difficult to pay for. Or perhaps you had to make a decision that was very difficult. But if you feel that what you are in need of is important enough, you will pay the price. For example, to pay college tuition is very difficult for most parents. That’s why they hope the child will get a scholarship or at least a grant to help. But even without, they can usually manage (though with difficulty) to pay the college fees. But on the other hand, if your wife or child or mother was in need of a surgery and it was life or death and your insurance could not pay for it, and it meant you selling everything you have (knowing you could not afford to get it back), but you value the life of your loved one so much that you do it. You may even say, that surgery “burnt up” my money. Or you may say, “I’m burning through money on hospital bills”. What you mean is that you are spending what you may not get back. 

What I just explained to you is the difference in a difficult offering and a burnt offering or burnt sacrifice as the Bible calls it. A difficult offering is when a person takes something or does something that is hard to do or hard to give, and they give it to God. But though it is difficult, it is not something that they can not get back or can not regain. But the burnt offering, on the other hand, is the thing that they do or give that is once and for all, final, no getting it back. But they give it in faith that God will give them not the same, but BETTER. 

The Word of God says about Abraham,

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead,” Hebrews 11:17-19

When I show God my total trust and dependency by giving my life and everything in my life as a burnt offering (meaning giving it one hundred percent) to Him, He then sees my faith and gives to me one hundred percent of what I need. It’s life for life. All for all. My all for God’s all. That’s the difference. What God wants from us is not what is difficult, but what is “burnt”. Our all. When I am willing to give it to Him, I began to see the impossible becoming possible in my life. 

May the God of the Bible Bless You

Bishop Bira Fonseca