Manna for Today: Psalm 50

 

Psalm 50:1-23

Key Verses:50:14-15

“I am God Most High! The only sacrifice I want is for you to be thankful and to keep your word. Pray to me in time of trouble. I will rescue you, and you will honor me.” CEV

Sometimes as Christians we work desperately hard to do the right things and to not do the right things. We make sacrifices of the things we want to do, the things we would like to do and instead seek to do the things we are told the things God would want us to do. So much of what we do as Christians, reading our Bible, learning the truth which can be found in scripture, making time to spend with other Christians, for worship, for the study of scripture and for the building of the body, adhering to the written and unwritten expectations of our local congregations, are good things to do and choose not to do, but doing or not doing these things are not what makes us the people God is calling us to be. There are so many things we offer up to God, like sacrifices. Our sacrifices are not the sustenance on which God feeds. God does not need food for strength or growth, so these are not things God needs, but they are things which we do out of our love and thankfulness to God for God’s loving-kindness which is continually extended to us. The God loves us, God walks with us, through the joys and the sorrows of life and in turn we respond to God with love and thankfulness. We give God the thanks and the praise for the good things in our lives. God also desires that when we are hurting, when we are in trouble, when we are struggling, that we turn to God and ask God to help us, to be with us, to lend us strength. We recognize the way God works in our lives by acknowledging God when we are in time so trouble and struggle, as well as giving God the thanks and praise in time of joy and triumph.

 

 

Thing to Think on

What kinds of things do you offer up to God as sacrifices?

Why do you sacrifice these things? Does doing or not doing these things help you to be the person God desires for you to be?

What would it look like if instead you offered up your praise and thanks and praise, and then allowed any sacrifices you made to be made out of an attitude of thankfulness and praise?

 

 

A Prayer for Today

Lord, it is so easy to make so much of what I do, become sacrifices that I begrudgingly give to God. God I know you do not want anything I give begrudgingly or out of duty. Help me instead to live a life given over to you out of thankfulness and praise. Let all that I do to be the person you are calling me to be and know I can be, be done freely out of love. Help me to love you freely, wholly and completely. Help me to live in the freedom of Christ and not out of obligation. Help me to see the difference.- Amen