“Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine.
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” ~ Psalm 50:7-15
Yesterday, we heard God say that God wanted love, not sacrifice.
Today God does want sacrifice - a specific kind.
I don't think this means God contradicts God's self.
I think thanksgiving comes out of love.
God wants the Hebrew people to know that all they have belongs to God anyway. Anything they sacrifice is already God's.
Isn't that true for us as well? I mean, we like to think our stuff belongs to us, but at the end of the day, that which is created belongs to the creator.
Even if we made something with our own hands, what we made it from came ultimately from God.
So what is left?
Gratitude for all we possess. Thankfulness to the One who made possession a possibility.
And love to move us to share what is in our possession.
Instill gratitude in my heart, Lord, as I remember that all I have is truly yours. Amen
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