#DailyDevotion What Does God Really Want From You?
Psalm 40 6You were not pleased with sacrifice and offering—You have opened my ears; You didn’t want burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin; 7then I said, “I have come! (The writing in the scroll of the book tells about Me). 8I delight to do what you want, O My God. Your law is in My heart.”
As we look at this part of the Psalm it is probably best to look to the book of Hebrews as it comments on it:
Heb. 10 5That is why He says when He comes into the world: You didn’t want sacrifice and offering, but You prepared a body for Me. 6Burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin didn’t please You. 7Then I said: Look! I have come (the writing in the scroll of the book tells about Me). I’m here to do what you want, O God. 8First He says: “You didn’t want and weren’t pleased with sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, and sacrifices for sin which are offered according to the Law.” 9Then He says: “Look! I have come and am here to do what you want.” He takes away the first to set up the second. 10Doing God’s will, Jesus Christ sacrificed His body only once and so made us holy.
It is one of the strange things of the Old Testament that in the Torah (first five books of the Bible) God gives all sorts of sacrifices for the Israelites to make, particularly for sin. However in many places in the Old Testament, the LORD often despises the sacrifices of the Israelites and tells them He doesn’t need or want them. I think this can be reconciled by Deut. 10, 16“Then circumcise your hearts, and don’t be stubborn anymore.”
This feeds into the issue of this Psalm and verse where the Hebrew text has “you have opened my ears,” whereas the LXX (Greek Old Testament) has “prepared a body for me.” We should note the Hebrew verb for open and prepared have the same consonants but different vowels Secondly, if one’s ears are opened by the LORD then they are obedient and trusting the LORD which carries over to the whole of the body being obedient. Being obedient to the LORD from the heart is having a circumcised heart. No matter what our LORD commands us in the bible, be it sacrifice or any other action or inaction, He doesn’t just want the outward work. You could be outwardly doing everything the LORD commands you to do, but if your heart isn’t in it, it doesn’t count. So St. Paul says in Romans, 14:23, “Anything that is not an act of faith is sin.” Hebrews writes in ch. 11, “6But it is impossible to please God without faith.”
The author of Hebrews shows us Jesus Christ of Nazareth fulfills this Psalm and verses for us. Jesus is the one who hears God’s will, believes it, trusts it and does it in heart and body. Secondly, as the bodies of the sacrifices from the Torah do not please God but Jesus who completes these sacrifices with His own body does. His faith, His obedience, which offers up His body on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins pleases God. It now pleases God our Father when we believe and trust Jesus has done this for us. Faith which trusts Jesus’ sacrifice for us makes us who are unholy, holy to God the Father. In this faith, we begin to live out Christ’s life in our own as we believe and trust God and offer up our bodies as living sacrifices to Him doing what He commands us.
Heavenly Father, as Your Son Jesus Christ, in faith offered up His body You prepared for sacrifice, so give us the same faith in Christ so we may become living sacrifices. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.