“Let our offerings be acceptable before God.”
“Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.” - Jude 1:11
God accepted Abel’s offering, but He rejected Cain’s sacrifice. The answer to why this was so is clearly mentioned in Hebrews 11:4 - “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain”. The difference was in the amount of faith that they had.
Cain’s sacrifice can be compared with the offerings of today’s Christians in many ways. Our offerings have become without faith or gratitude. They are self-centred and ritualistic, trying to keep up a good report among other people, expecting rewards for ourselves out of blatant greed. This, as Jude mentions, was also the error of Balaam.
“Many Christians are afraid of secular humanism or atheism or the world. But dead religion is far more dangerous and sends more people to hell than anything else. These certain men were in the way of Cain, which is the way of dead religion” - David Guzik, Enduring Word
Let our offerings be acceptable before the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! Let us not fall under the influence of Cain, Balaam or Korah, who once being in the business of God, was subjected to painful judgments due to their greed and envy.