READ Psalm 40:6–10. 6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire—but my ears you have opened—burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. 7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll. 8 I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.” 9 I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, LORD, as you know. 10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly.
FROM DUTY TO PLEASURE. Waiting for God (see yesterday’s entry) changed David from the inside out. He no longer obeyed God’s laws under compulsion but joyfully from the heart (verse 7–8). “Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more.”36 David seems to say his eager self-offering ends all sacrifices for sin (verse 6). The New Testament quotes these words to tell of a greater David, who told his Father that he would willingly live the obedient life we should have lived and die the death we should have died in order to bring us to God (Hebrews 10:5–10). Let yourself be moved by what he did for you until your duty becomes a joy.
Prayer: Father, how wonderful it is in these verses to overhear the ancient conversation between you and your Son and to know that from all eternity you have been loving us and planning our salvation at infinite cost to yourself. I can only bow in grateful awe before this love from before the foundation of the world. Amen.