“Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the Lord…
As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame.  Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground.  When the angel of the Lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the Lord.

‘We are doomed to die!’  he said to his wife.  ‘We have seen God!’

But his wife answered, ‘If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands…'”
 – Judges 13:19-23

In this story, Manoah and his wife were met by the angel of the Lord.  They offered a sacrifice to God, and He showed them that it was accepted when the fire consumed it, and the angel ascended toward heaven in the flame.  This revelation of God’s presence sent terror to Manoah, and he thought that he would surely die.   His wife, however, recognized that God’s acceptance of the sacrifice could give her confidence in His acceptance of them.

Likewise, we too can have confidence in God’s acceptance of us on account of His acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice.  In the same way God demonstrated His acceptance of Manoah’s sacrifice with a miracle, He demonstrates His acceptance of the blood of Jesus on our behalf by the miracle of the resurrection.  Christ’s resurrection is the source of our security in God, and the basis of our confidence in His acceptance of us.

God’s acceptance of a sacrifice has huge, comforting implications for us.