MARCH 11
Psalm 50:12, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.”
We’ve some family birthdays happening this month and next. It’s not always easy to decide what to get, especially when most have everything they want or need. Still, it’s good to express one’s love by way of some kind of special birthday gift. But what do you give as a gift to the God who has and owns everything?
The psalmist was concerned for true worship of God. Some imagined God as needing food. The pagans sacrificed to appease their gods. Some Israelites assumed they were likewise feeding God, and that God needed them to keep him well fed and content. But the self-existent and self-sufficient God, who owns the “cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:1), has need of nothing.
God does not want offerings—not even sacrificial offerings—if they do not express gratitude and joy from the hearts of the givers, as Charles Spurgeon explained: “No longer look at your sacrifices as in themselves gifts pleasing to me, but present them as tributes of your gratitude; it is then that I will accept them, but not while your souls have no love and no thankfulness to offer me.”
At the heart of true worship is love for God and gratitude for all that He’s done!
Application Questions: Given that God owns everything, why give Him gifts and seek to serve Him? What is your motivation in giving and serving?
LookingtoJesus 