Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required. Then I said, "Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me; I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is in my heart.
Have you ever worked with someone who does only what their job description states and no more? They can argue that they did they're job, but they are unwilling to go the extra mile because they are consumeristic in their thinking rather than community. The job becomes all about them. If they can walk away with their pay check, that's all that matters. When work becomes community, it has no lines. It is in this for the sake of all concerned and not just his/her concerns. This consumeristic thinking has plagued Christianity; a people who want only the minimum requirement, if that, and no more. It's all about themselves, so they bring their "sacrifice and meal offering", their "burnt offering and sin offering", and consider themselves Christians; translated into western thinking that's a Sunday morning service and maybe some Bible reading and prayer. After all, this is their job description. But it's a religion with a finish line, and God doesn't work with finish lines. God's people are different, in that they aren't living for the minimum, but are always pursuing the infinite maximum. But, even here, if you will observe, the difference isn't even in their pursuit. It's in the pleasure of their pursuit. Like Jesus, they are able to say, "I delight to do Your will; O my God". How do you get there? That's the interesting part of this text. In verse six it states, "Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened". The word "opened", in "My ears you have opened", literally means "dug". This is a work of God that digs our ears out so we no longer suffer the deafening malady of head law, but we now have the liberating quality of heart Law: I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is in my heart". This heart Law does amazing things because it no longer functions from the standpoint of law that limits itself to duty, but rather from the standpoint of love that lives outside itself with delight. O give me this heart!
Have you ever worked with someone who does only what their job description states and no more? They can argue that they did they're job, but they are unwilling to go the extra mile because they are consumeristic in their thinking rather than community. The job becomes all about them. If they can walk away with their pay check, that's all that matters. When work becomes community, it has no lines. It is in this for the sake of all concerned and not just his/her concerns. This consumeristic thinking has plagued Christianity; a people who want only the minimum requirement, if that, and no more. It's all about themselves, so they bring their "sacrifice and meal offering", their "burnt offering and sin offering", and consider themselves Christians; translated into western thinking that's a Sunday morning service and maybe some Bible reading and prayer. After all, this is their job description. But it's a religion with a finish line, and God doesn't work with finish lines. God's people are different, in that they aren't living for the minimum, but are always pursuing the infinite maximum. But, even here, if you will observe, the difference isn't even in their pursuit. It's in the pleasure of their pursuit. Like Jesus, they are able to say, "I delight to do Your will; O my God". How do you get there? That's the interesting part of this text. In verse six it states, "Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened". The word "opened", in "My ears you have opened", literally means "dug". This is a work of God that digs our ears out so we no longer suffer the deafening malady of head law, but we now have the liberating quality of heart Law: I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is in my heart". This heart Law does amazing things because it no longer functions from the standpoint of law that limits itself to duty, but rather from the standpoint of love that lives outside itself with delight. O give me this heart!
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