Sacrifice or Ritual
Psalm 40:6-8
English Standard Version (ESV)
6 (A)In sacrifice and
offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open (B)ear.[a]
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written (C)of me:
8 (D)I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is (E)within my heart.”
but you have given me an open (B)ear.[a]
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written (C)of me:
8 (D)I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is (E)within my heart.”
It
is all in the motive. How many put money
in the offering plate as a sense of duty?
When we give God our offering it should be a sign of faith, not duty,
yet every Sunday I know it happens. We
may place a check in the offering plate but not be getting along with our
brother or sister in Christ. The Father
is saying in these verses that we should not sacrifice out of duty but rather
do the Will of the Father because we delight in Him.
Many
people got into the habit of sacrificing because it was a duty rather than it
being a means of asking the Father for forgiveness. If they
didn’t raise the animals themselves they had to purchase them for sacrifice.
There were certain qualifications that allowed specific animals to be used for specific
so many people probably had to purchase them.
This took money so without money your sins couldn’t be forgiven? Absolutely not, part of the sacrifice was
trust. If we put just the right of budgeted
money into the plate and call it our duty as a Christian we are like the ones
that appeared to be sacrifice but really weren’t. We can’t say that we have “earned” our faith,
we need to demonstrate it in our daily lives.
How
did David do that? He opened up the Word
of God and found the Words of the Lord.
The most important thing to our Lord is our Faith in Him. David emphasizes the importance of opening
the Bible and reading! We cannot know
His ways if we aren’t guided by His Words.
Our faith would become a faith of rituals taught by those who came
before us. He wants us to seek Him and
to know Him by allowing Him to speak to us through His word, not out of duty
but out of a strong desire to now Him more intimately. As you seek Him and find Him may you realize
that you find Him by reading His word and meditating on the both day and night.
Seeking
Him with all my heart,
Sheila
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