God wants your obedience more than your sacrifices.

Recently in a conversation with my son, I came to know that one of his favorite Psalm was Psalm 40.  He told me that this was a Psalm that gave him strength when he needed it.  It made me happy that my 11 year old had a favorite Psalm. It has been and continues to be my prayer that my grandparents'  God, my parents' God, my God, will also be my children's God and a God to generations to come. My grandfather made this God real for me. I'd hoped my children would develop a personal relationship with this God, have their own experiences of God's glory, and those experiences to anchor them for a journey of faith in Christ for as long as they lived.

This conversation with my son came about one recent night during our family prayer as I had asked my son to pick Psalms 37 to read.  Being that it was a departure from our regular scripture reading, he asked me why.  I told him that Psalms 37 has been a Psalm that I have turned to from my childhood when I felt the need for God to carry me through tough times, times of doubt. More specifically there is this one verse, vs. 5 (the New Living Translation or NLT version), "Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you."

Psalms 37 is full of God's assurances to his children, the godly! The NLT Bible makes mention of the "godly" 12 times through out this Psalm. I suppose the Psalmist is emphasizing for whom God's assurances are for. The KJV Bible refers to the "godly" as the "righteous."  As a child it was okay to blindly trust in the verse and pray. God answered the prayers of that teenage boy time and again. Today, as an adult, there is more required of me by God.

Who are the righteous or the godly? Deuteronomy 6:25 says, "For we are righteous when we obey all the commands the LORD our God has given us." To such, the Psalmist encourages in Psalms 37:4, "Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart's desires." Psalms 1:1-2 says, "Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners or join in with scoffers.  But they delight in doing everything the LORD wants; day and night they think about his law." Such people, we read in verse 3 of the same Psalm, "They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season without fail.  Their leaves never wither, and in all they do, they prosper."

God's instructions to Joshua, chosen to lead the Israelites following Moses' death, was "Be strong and very courageous [in the face of great challenges, opposition, grave danger, and dark periods of self doubt ].  Obey all the laws Moses gave you.  Do not turn away from them and you will be successful in everything you do.  Study this Book of the Law continually. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be sure to obey all that is written in it.  Only then will you succeed." (Joshua 1:7-8) When you (the Joshua 's of the world) do this, God's promise is, "Everywhere you go, you will be on land I have given you... No one will be able to stand their ground against you as long as you live.  For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you."  (Joshua 1:3-5)

Going back to my son's favorite Psalm, I read, "You (God) take no delight in sacrifices or offerings.  Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand--you don't require burnt offerings or sin offerings.  Then I said, "Look, I have come.  And this has been written about me in your scroll: I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your law is written on my heart." (Psalms 40:6-8).  If we had a chance to peek into God's scroll, what would we find about us?

God wants our obedience more than the sacrifices of burnt offerings and sin offerings!

Jesus Culture - Holy Spirit