Psalm 51 (Day 41): Inner Disposition

"You do not delight in sacrifice, 

or I would bring it;

You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart,

O God, You will not despise."

Ps 51:16-17, NIV

At first glance, one may assume David's main theme discredits the validity of sacrifice and burnt offerings, deeming them unfit and unacceptable to God. It will do us well to remember that, at the time of the writing of these verses, burnt sacrifices were still being offered as acceptable and delightful offerings to God (verse 19 covers that point). Written long before Jesus came to earth as a human being, long before Christ offered Himself as the final atonement for human sin, David's penitential prayer (far from dismissing sacrifice and burnt offerings altogether) inspires us to seek more insight.

Holy Spirit,

I thank You because the holy Word tells me

that You will instruct me and teach me in the way I should go,

that You will make known to me the path of life,

and that You will open my eyes to see Your wonderful truths.

Help me to grow in my understanding

of that which this passage is meant to impart.

I pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen!

On this forty-first morning of my 50 days of waiting for Pentecost Sunday, the Holy Spirit reveals to me that verses 16 & 17 point to a crucial element of any offering that we dedicate to the Father -- it is to be accompanied by an inner disposition of gratitude, humility, brokenness, contrition, and generosity on our part. The above thought is echoed in Micah's famous message to Israel:

"With what shall I come before the Lord

and bow down before the exalted God?

Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:6-8, NIV

In other words, sincere repentance requires genuine contrition. If you and I are serious about worshipping God, whatever we present to Him has to meet the above criteria. 

If giving money to God . . .
we are to do it with zero trace of ingratitude, pride, boastfulness, apathy, or stinginess.

If pledging our time to God . . .
we are to do so without grumbling and sans double standards.

If giving our toil, talent, or treasure to God . . .
we are to surrender them all to Him with a joyful and grateful heart.

In fact, the cross invites you and me to relinquish even our filth -- our devious deeds and heinous sins -- to the Father with the sacrificial heart described in these verses, effectively pointing to the Pauline charge which urges us to offer our "bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God" (Rom 12:1).

 So, like David, we pray to You, Holy Father. Please receive our all. Accept our repentant hearts, brother and contrite. Take our prayers and praises, filthy rags though they be. Delight in our songs and sermons, unworthy and impure though we are in our own strength. And, assist us, O Holy Spirit, in worshipping the God-head with all that we are, all that we have, all that we hope to be, each and every second of every day. Grant that our worship, once begun, never ever cease!