Saturday, July 24, 2021

Minute Meditations: Psalm 50

In this psalm, God summons His people to stand before Him that He may judge them. They have made a covenant with Him, but they have broken it, and now God takes them to task for the lack of correspondence between their external practices of worship and the rest of their lives.

God admits that He does not rebuke the people for the number of their sacrifices. They're good at going through the motions, and they do so frequently. Their burnt offerings are always before God. But God won't accept any of them, for the people are not offering them in the right spirit. They seem to think that God might be hungry and that they are giving Him something He needs (as with the pagan “gods”). God puts an end to this notion. If He were hungry (which He isn't), He certainly wouldn't tell them. He owns everything and could simply take what He wanted. What's more, the people seem to think that they can buy God's favor by doing their external rituals exactly right. Apparently, they know very little about God and what He really wants.

So God tells them what He really wants. He wants His people to bring their voluntary sacrifices to Him out of love. He wants their gratitude. He wants them to keep the vows they have made to Him, i.e., the covenant. He wants them to stop merely reciting His laws and actually start living them. He wants them to stop speaking evil and telling lies. He wants them to be generous and loving with one another. He wants them to stop being hypocrites.

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