GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 8 ~ ~ James 1:17 ~ ~ “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

From John Piper’s book, “The Pleasures of God”

Proverbs 15:8

“The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord

but the prayer of the upright is his delight.”

Meditate with me for a few minutes on Proverbs 15:8, above.

My first question is this: How can something as good as a sacrifice to God, which God ordained in the Book of Leviticus, become an abomination to the Lord? The first half says, “the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.”

The answer seems to be that an act which is good in itself can become displeasing to God when it is done with the wrong inner disposition. An outward act that looks pious to us can look horrible in God’s eyes because it comes from a heart that is wrong.

There seems to be a principle implied here that would go something like this: in God’s eyes the beauty –and hence enjoyableness—of an act is the outworking of inward beauty, and the ugliness of an act is the outworking of an inward ugliness. Since God always looks on the heart (1Samuel 16:7), he always sees our outward acts not as a man sees them, but as extensions of what he sees on the inside. Whether our acts are immoral, like stealing and lying and adultery, or whether our acts are moral like church attendance and community service, both may be abominable in God’s eyes if the heart is not right.

Paul teaches the same thing when he says in Romans 14:23, “whatever is not from faith is sin.” The inner beauty of hoping (trusting) in God, of trusting him for help and guidance, makes the external act beautiful. If this faith is not there motivating the act, the act is not pleasing to the Lord: it is sin. Hebrews 11:6 teaches this when it says, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Mere external “righteousness” does not please God. In fact, we will see that it is not righteousness at all if it does not come from faith.

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