David: An Acceptable Offering

We are currently, on Tuesday mornings, looking at seven different characters from God's Word.

We took a break last Tuesday and looked at 9 Blessings of Brokenness, but today we're back on track.

​We've looked at ​Abraham: God’s Powerful Promise to a Patriarch, ​​Joseph: He Obeyed Quickly & Completely, Moses: Lifting the Hands of God’s Man and Moses & Aaron: The Leaders Punished. Today, we're looking at ​David: An Acceptable Offering​​.

​These characters are also featured in (Part Three: Days 21-27 Men of God Character Study) our Come and Gather: Family Time With God 27-day devotional. Or, what we lovingly refer to as Gather. ​Today's theme is consecration and our text is from ​Psalm 19.

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14

“All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give…” so begins one of the most beloved and familiar invitation hymns. In Psalm 19:14, the psalmist expresses his ultimate desire, his desire to please the Lord through the surrender of his speech and his thoughts. Much is said in Scripture regarding our speech. James, through the direction of the Holy Spirit, wrote 18 verses regarding the control of the tongue. It is indeed “a little member” but “how great a matter a little fire kindleth” (James 3:5).

The psalmist also realizes the need to surrender his thoughts and desires to the Lord as well.

• What do you think about?
  
• What thoughts do you allow your mind to dwell on?
  

Oh that we would follow the instruction of that great leader of Israel found in Joshua 1:8:

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

In addition to his longing to surrender his thoughts and desires to the Lord, David realized it was only because the Lord was his Strength and his Redeemer that he would be able to live out this longing in his daily life.

​The Christian can live a life pleasing to the Lord; can have speech that edifies; can possess a mind that thinks only pure and holy thoughts because “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). It is through the strength of the Spirit and the freedom of the redeeming blood of Christ that a Christian can offer an acceptable sacrifice to God.

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.” Proverbs 4:23-24

“Let my mouth speak nothing but what is true, kind, and profitable;
and my heart meditate on nothing but what is holy, pure, and chaste.” —Adam Clarke

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Although our circumstances vary, we all ache with a longing for something more. We are born with dreams, and some of us even have detailed plans about how to make them happen. Yet we all come to a point in life when we realize that we are not in control. A loved one gets sick, a tragedy occurs, our plans backfire. What we may not realize is that even if we can't depend on our circumstances or even ourselves, there is One who will always provide what we need, just when we need it.

With compassion and enthusiasm, Meredith McDaniel writes In Want + Plenty: Waking Up to God's Provision in a Land of Longing and invites you to walk alongside God's people in Exodus as they wake up each morning to manna, God's provision for them in desert places. As she unfolds their story of complete dependence on their Creator, you'll discover through guided journaling how God is providing for you right now, where you are in your own unique story. Along the way, you will develop a comforting awareness that you are seen, guided, protected, and filled by a good God in the person of Jesus.

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What passage of Scripture comes to mind when you think about surrendering your thoughts and desires to the Lord?

Come and Gather: Family Time With God published with permission
​Pastor Jeremy Sweatt, Farmington Avenue Baptist Church, West Hartford, Connecticut