Gratitude Not Presumption

Bethany post:  843 Acres: The Rejection of Offerings

Offerings: Employing a courtroom image, the Psalmist envisions God as prosecutor, witness, and judge. He has indicted Israel: “I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine” [1]. What is wrong with their offerings? Doesn’t he want us to make offerings?

Presumption: Yes, he calls us to offer our gifts—even our lives—to him as offerings. [2] The problem with the offerings of Israel, though, was that they were being presented to God with presumptuous and arrogant hearts, as if God needed their sacrifices. As if he was the dependent and needy one, not them. Yet as Paul tells those in Athens, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” [3].

Abundance: Why is God so insistent that we understand his independence? One reason is that he wants us to rest in his abundance, sovereignty, and generosity. Also, though, he wants us to see Christ. When we see that we bring nothing and he offers—indeed, in Christ, has offered—everything, our hearts offer gifts to him in gratitude, not presumption. As Thomas Brooks explains, “The only ground of God’s love is his love. The ground of God’s love is only and wholly in himself. There is neither portion nor proportion in us to draw his love.”

Prayer: Lord, Every day, we wake up with the hope that we will offer our lives to you. That we will contribute to the common good in our work, that we will seek your face in the morning, that we will love others to life in the gospel. Yet sometimes we act as though you need our work to accomplish your plans. Forgive us for our presumptuous hearts, as we increasingly know that “the one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me” [4]. Give us hearts of thanks. Amen.