40 Days of Prayer, Day 2
Day 2, Monday, August 22
“For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Psalm 51:16-17
“Wish”ful Thinking about the Heart
The opening lines of a famous song at Disney goes something like this: “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, anything your heart desires, will come to you. If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme, when you wish upon a star as dreamers do...”
This sentiment follows the long held view of many that all you need to do in life is to “follow your heart.” There are some immediate and obvious disconnects from reality in this song. For me personally, as a 48 year old, weakening and slowing as I age, I can dream of playing in the NBA all I want. My heart can be set upon playing in an NBA All-star game or winning an NBA title. Despite all the wishing, dreaming and heartfelt desire, reality dictates differently. I am way too slow and way too old not to mention the thousand plus talent issues. However, the more fundamental flaw with this overly optimistic view of life comes from its unrealistically hopeful view of the human condition. Underlying the very optimistic worldview is the unrealistic view that the heart possesses natural goodness.
Realistic Thinking about the Heart
Disney’s worldview concerning the condition of the human heart compared to the Scripture’s worldview concerning the condition of the heart could not be more distinct. Disney holds the view that if we follow the desires of our heart that our dreams will come true. In other words Disney views our heart as the conduit to good things. The Bible describes the heart in quite a different way. According to God, our hearts are completely untrustworthy. Jeremiah the prophet said it this way. “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9. The heart is the most deceitful thing in the world, according to the prophet Jeremiah. Our hearts tell bad lies. We lie to ourselves by pretending to be more spiritual than we really are. We lie to ourselves by pretending to be far less sinful than we really are. We lie to others by constantly presenting ourselves as kinder and more gracious than our actual thoughts. Worse of all we lie to God, trying to hide from Him our true struggles with sin. Our attitudes betray us. Our words betray us. Our actions betray us. In our natural bent, our heart leads us away from the things of God and away from that which is good.
We see this in the life of David. David defeated Goliath. We see David leading the nation into battle for the sake of the name of God. David, the anointed king of Israel, wrote many of the psalms, including this one. David prepared Israel for the construction of the temple as the locus for the worship life of the nation. All of this good but on the inside there was clearly trouble. After years of spiritual life and service, David’s deceptive heart betrayed him. This psalm, Psalm 51, comes from the pen of David. The inspiration for the psalm is not one of David’s moments of success. Instead, this psalm comes from David’s failures. David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then tried to cover for that sin with a greater evil, the killing of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband. The condition of David’s heart was evil. This is quite a different and more realistic view of the heart than the song at a theme park. David followed the dreams of his heart. The results were catastrophic. We must pursue our relationship with God with a realistic view of who He is and who we are. He is absolutely holy and we are prone to sin in thoughts, words and actions.
Prayer Focus
God, we see in Your Word that my heart is prone toward trouble. Even if no one else can see the inner thoughts of my heart and mind, You see and know them all. Father, kind and gracious Lord, please protect me from my own hidden motives. Please lead me away from the temptations that reside within my own heart. My heart is not naturally pure. But You, Oh Lord, are pure. Take of Your heart and mind and give to me just a small measure so that I might be more like You.
From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
Four things are very acceptable to God. The first is the sacrifice of the body of Christ for our sins. Of this you read in Hebrews 10 that His sacrifice is preferred to all burnt-offerings and all sacrifices; it is this that pleases God; it is this that sanctifies, and so makes all of us acceptable in the sight of God.
Second. Unfeigned love to God is counted better than all sacrifices, or external parts of worship. 'And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the mind, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices' (Mark 12:33).
Third. To walk purely and humbly, and obediently, towards and before God, is another. Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?, 'Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice; and to hearken than the fat of rams' (Micah 6:6-8; 1 Sam 15:22).
Fourth. And this in our text is the fourth: 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.'