SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 05-03-03
My
Worship Time Focus: Christ sacrifice was
better
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Hebrews 10:5-6
Message
of the verse: “Therefore when He
comes into the world, He says, "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
but You have prepared a body for Me. In
burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have had no pleasure. (MKJV)
“That is why Christ, when he came into the world, said, “You did not
want animal sacrifices and grain offerings, But you have given me a body so
that I may obey you. No, you were not
pleased with animals burned on the altar or with other offerings for sin.” (NLT)
There are
a number of things that need to be talked about concerning this verse. First this verse is quoted from Psalm 40:6-8,
and it does not read like this verse from the OT. It came from the LXX version which is a Greek
translation of the OT. The part that is
not the same is where it says in Hebrews, “but You have prepared a body for
Me.” In the OT is say, “Mine ears Thou
hast opened.” Different commentators
give different reasons as to why this was changed so much from one translation
to the other. I will use a quotation
from the 1912 Scofield reference Bible, “#Ps 40:6 the rule, applicable to all modifications of the
form of quotations in the N.T. from O.T. writings, is that the divine Author of
both Testaments is perfectly free, in using an earlier statement, to recast the
mere literary form of it. The variant form
will be found invariably to give the deeper meaning of the earlier statement.” Dr. Wiersbe says the when the OT says, “My
ears Thou hast opened,” the writer is saying that because His ears are a
readiness to hear and to obey the will of His Father.
Next is to
describe the sacrifices that are spoken of here. Jesus Christ fulfilled each type of sacrifice
that was given in the OT sacrifices.
This verse mentions it more clearly in the NLT version where it gives
the names of these sacrifices. (See this
version written above.) All of these sacrifices
are mentioned in Lev. 1-7.
The next
point that I have learned from this section is that OT sacrifices were given by
men, while God is the One who has given the sacrifice for the NT, and that of
course is Jesus Christ Himself, for it says in verse five that God has prepared
a body for Him so that He could do His will.
The will of the Father was that the Son would obey Him in dying of the
cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world that is why Christ came to earth
the first time.
Spiritual meaning for
my life today: The obedience of
the Son doing the will of His Father is what has spoken to my heart as I went
over this passage. I know that there are
far to many times when I put myself into the place of another person and think
that what he or she is doing has been made easy for them to do and not realize
the difficulty of their given task, and I am sure this is the case of Jesus
Christ that I do not (nor ever will) understand all of the emotions that He
went through to come to earth as a man, living for over thirty years in the
body of a man and then becoming sin so that man can live forever because of His
perfect sacrifice for me and others. Me
thinking that this was easy for Him to do is not correct at all, for the
emotions that He went through to fulfill this task would have killed any other
man who was born a sinner, but not the perfect Son of God who was not born
having an earthly father.
The Word of God was very refreshing, convicting and a
challenge to my heart as I read it this morning.
My
Steps of Faith Today: To
continue to trust the Lord in this situation with our finances, and that the
Lord will work on my heart, and Andy’s heart, and Gary’s heart so that all of
us that are involved in this will become more like Jesus Christ because of
this.
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