I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bull, which has horns and hooves. (Psalm 69:30-31)

In an earlier psalm, David had written these words: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require” (Psalm 40:6). At first, that seems to be an odd statement given the fact that the Torah is replete with instructions pertaining to sacrifices and burnt offerings. However, the essence of David’s statement is, more than bringing animals with horns and hooves to  be sacrificed upon an altar, God wants us to be as a living sacrifice. He wants us to surrender fully to His Will and to serve Him with glad and grateful hearts. That he understood this to be so is why David said, “my ears You have opened.” In other words, he got the message.

Contrast this with Saul, who didn’t seem to get the message at all. He thought that if he held onto to the spoils of war, specifically the flocks and herds of those he was told to annihilate, the Lord would be pleased. However, his notion was in direct opposition to the Lord’s command. In fact, the prophet Samuel rebuked the king’s refusal to obey the Lord’s instruction saying, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22).

If our devotion is to be desired more than an animal sacrifice, it seems logical that the sacrifices of praise and songs of thanksgiving offered by those who faithfully serve the Lord would also be desired by Him, more so than the fat of rams. Rather than presenting to Him those gifts we deem to be valuable and that, quite honestly, aren’t as inconvenient as dying to our own desire, we are to present ourselves wholeheartedly and with gladness. Therefore, we should follow the admonition written in Hebrews: “Let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name” (Hebrews 13:15).

Blessings and Shalom,  

Bill 

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