Psalm 50

Psalm 50:12-15

“¹²If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
    for the world and its fullness are mine. ¹³ Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats? ¹⁴ Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
    and perform your vows to the Most High, ¹⁵ and call upon me in the day of trouble;
    I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

I love this passage for numerous reasons:

1)      God has some serious dry wit.

Exhibit A: “Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” Like no, His being doesn’t require sustenance from mortal things that He created. He created us. He created the animals and plants that keep us alive. I’m assuming this passage is talking about the guilt and sin sacrifices/offerings the Israelites performed. So God is asking if we seriously think offering sacrifices to Him actually benefits Him in some way. No way Josè.  The guilt and sin sacrifices (and then the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior) our meant to benefit us. Us: the little puny humans whose lives aren’t more than mists in the wind (James 4:14). Us: the mortals who rely on God to give them strength (Psalm 28:7).

Exhibit B: Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3)

Exhibit C: God’s reply to Job’s suffering (Job, chapters 38-42)

2)      We don’t need to DO anything

God doesn’t have to be appeased. God literally appeases Himself through His creation. We don’t have to earn salvation through good works. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast.” We don’t have to earn the approval of God. Thus…

3)      Everything we DO do should be in thanksgiving

Because we can’t earn God’s grace (it has already been freely given to us) we should thank the Lord by glorifying His name, which is ultimately what He requires us to do. And if He wants us to glorify His name, He will not lead us astray. Psalm 23:3 says, “He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.”

Getting Something Out of It

Why do we feel the need to “get something out of” our time with God??? Either in a sermon, or from reading the Bible, we feel that we have to have this huge 'eureka!' moment. But I've been realizing that our relationship with God shouldn't be about that.

In Knowing God, by JI Packer, he talks about the Holy Spirit, and how we sometimes seek all the good feelings that the Spirit can afford us without first seeking a relationship with the Father.

“The cause of such troubles as we have described is a false, magical type of supernaturalism, which leads people to hanker after a transforming touch as from an electric, impersonal power that will make them feel wholly free form the burdens and bondages of living with themselves and other people. They believe that this is the essence of genuine spiritual experience. They think the work of the Spirit is to give them experiences that are like LSD trips. (How unhelpful it is when evangelists actually promise this, and when drug users equate their fantasies with religious experience! Will our age never learn to distinguish things that differ?) In fact, however, this quest for inward explosion rather than an inward communion shows deep misunderstanding of the Spirit’s ministry.”

I think we all realize that reading our Bibles will not be akin to an LSD trip, but we still long for feelings of affirmation and empowerment when we read the words and yearn for God to speak to us. The words in Leviticus recording the types of sacrifices to perform are not as likely to give those feelings as the words in the gospel of John describing Jesus’ life on earth. But God’s word is holy and perfect. Every word in the Bible is there for a reason.

In my opinion, when we read any part of the Bible, we are learning more about God and Who He Is – The I Am. Our relationship with Our Heavenly Father is a long process, one that takes our whole lives to complete. It’s a dance: sometimes fast and sometimes slow and sometimes in between. A dance that we don’t even realize we are growing in until we look up perhaps even months later. There are so many verses about seasons in the Bible. We can’t bloom and show fruit in every single season, or else we’ll quickly die out.

• Ecclesiastes 3:1 "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the heaven."
• Psalms 1:3 "He is like a tree, planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season..."
• Acts 1:7 "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority."

Sometimes the Bible challenges us: we read a verse and maybe haven’t had the experiences in life to understand it until years later. The Bible can be just totally and utterly confusing, but only by prayer and continuously being conscious in putting God first may we learn what it means. Sometimes we do get an “AHA!” moment where everything falls into place. Sometimes a verse/chapter/book affirms us and keeps us on the right path. Sometimes a verse/chapter/book shatters our world and we have to choose whether to totally change directions. But every time we read the Bible, we are learning about God. And no matter what the feeling is we “get out of it”, be they large or small or none at all, we are still learning about the God we worship, and that is totally enough.