2/27/2012 8:27:45 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: True Worship
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 50:7-23
Message of the verses: In yesterday’s SD we learned that Psalm 50 is like a court scene where “God summons the court (vv. 1-6) and confronts two offenders: the formalist, to whom worship is a ritual to follow (vv. 7-15), and the hypocrite, to whom worship is a disguise to cover sin (vv. 16-21). The psalm closes with a call to all worshipers to be faithful to God (vv. 22-23).”
“The Heartless Worshipers” (vv. 7-15): “7 "Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you; I am God, your God. 8 "I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, And your burnt offerings are continually before Me. 9 "I shall take no young bull out of your house Nor male goats out of your folds. 10 "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. 11 "I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. 12 "If I were hungry I would not tell you, For the world is Mine, and all it contains. 13 "Shall I eat the flesh of bulls Or drink the blood of male goats? 14 "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving And pay your vows to the Most High; 15 Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.’”
This section of Psalm 50 reminds me of Mica 6:6-8, “6 ¶ With what shall I come to the LORD And bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, With yearling calves? 7 Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, In ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”
The children of Israel got into the habit of offering their sacrifices to the Lord without actually living for the Lord, for their sacrifices just became a ritual to them. Jesus told the church in Ephesus in Revelations 2:4 “you have left your first love.” That church was doing all kinds of good things, but they were missing something very important that the Lord pointed out to them and that is to love the Lord. When Jesus was on the earth He was asked a question about what was the greatest of the commandments and He said that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls and minds, and then the second command was that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. I have a couple of observations about these two commandments and the first is that we cannot possibility love our neighbors if we don’t love God, and we can’t possibility love God unless He first loves us. Out of these two commandments flow the Ten Commandments, and out of the Ten Commandments flow all the other commandments in the OT. We also see a picture of the cross in these two commandments in that as we look at the cross the vertical part is our loving the Lord and then the horizontal part is our loving our neighbors to which Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan to show us who our neighbors are.
We see in this section of Scripture that the Lord tells these “worshipers” that he owned all of the things that were on the earth, the cattle on a thousand hills belonged to the Lord, for God created all things and therefore He owns all things and we as believers are His stewards while we are here on earth. I have a little saying on our refrigerator that says that we are not human beings going through a temporary spiritual experience, but we are spiritual beings going through a temporary human experience. If we keep this in mind then it will affect our love and worship of the Lord.
“The Hypocritical Sinner” (vv. 16-21): “16 ¶ But to the wicked God says, "What right have you to tell of My statutes And to take My covenant in your mouth? 17 "For you hate discipline, And you cast My words behind you. 18 "When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, And you associate with adulterers. 19 "You let your mouth loose in evil And your tongue frames deceit. 20 "You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother’s son. 21 "These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.”
I suppose that when you read about the “religious” people of Jesus’ day you could put many of them into the category that the psalmist is writing about in this section. Dr. Wiersbe writes the following about the word “hate” that is found in verse 17, “To ‘hate instruction’ (KJV) means to reject an ordered way of life patterned after God’ Word, to reject a responsible life. The Lord specifically named stealing (the 8th commandment, Ex. 20:14) and deceitful speech and slander (the 9th commandment Ex. 20:16). These are not ‘old covenant sins,’ for believers today who live under the new covenant can be just as guilty of committing them.”
God’s longsuffering is seen in verse 21 where we see that He keeps silence. The problem is that the people did not understand that God’s silence was His longsuffering, but they though because He did not speak that He approved their worship. The phrase “You thought that I was just like you” is speaking of the fact that these people had created a god in their image and so whatever they did was okay. They were wrong!
“The Honest Worshiper” (vv. 22-23): “22 "Now consider this, you who forget God, Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver. 23 "He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors Me; And to him who orders his way aright I shall show the salvation of God.’”
Let us take a look at John 4:23-24, “23 "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” This section in John’s Gospel is the Lord speaking to the woman at the well, telling her what true worship is all about and the psalmist also does this in verses 22-23. Worship is a matter of having our hearts right with God and the only way to begin this is to do as Jesus told Nicodemus, that is “you must be born again” or born from above. Paul writes about this in 1Cor. 15:1-4, “1 ¶ Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and in order to worship the Lord in Spirit and truth one must believe this.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: One of the things that I do not want to become like is the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. The things that I do in my worship of the Lord I truly want to be genuine and not something made up to show how spiritual that I am. The passage in Micah says that we have to walk humbly before our God. I know that whatever that I have has been given to me from the Lord including the most important thing and that is the salvation He gave to me. So what do I have to be proud about? Nothing!
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. To walk humbly before my God.
2. To continue to trust the Lord to teach me contentment.
3. Rom. 12:1-2.
4. Proverbs 3:5-6.
2/27/2012 9:30:04 AM
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