For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’
God spoke through Jeremiah to the nation of Judah. It appears that at the time, the nation was offering the prescribed sacrifices to God. And they apparently thought that providing God with his daily food offerings would satisfy him. But God was less than pleased with them. Their ritual practice of sacrifice was not a substitute for obedience.
It may seem that the passage quoted above contradicts Leviticus, where God mandated the practice of burnt offerings. However, it refers to the establishment of the covenant God made with Israel in Exodus 19:3-6. And that passage makes no mention of sacrifice. Instead, what the people were expected to do was obey God. The sacrifices were added later.
The burnt offerings were good—when the people followed and obeyed God with a committed heart. When they rejected the worship of idols. And when they cared for the poor, the widows and orphans, and the foreigner living among them.
But the burnt offerings had become nothing more than a ritual they went through. A ritual that God rejected. Because it was not accompanied by obedience to the call to social justice, moral purity, and wholehearted devotion to God.
I read my Bible every day. I contribute financially to the Lord’s work. And I am active in my local church. But is that enough? Is the Lord satisfied?
Those activities may be a sign of obedience, of loving God with all I am and my neighbor as myself. And when that is true, they are pleasing to God. But they can easily become little more than a ritual I perform. A ritual that is replacing full obedience. And then they have no value.
Related Posts
The post Replacing Obedience with Ritual – Jeremiah 7:22-23 appeared first on A Clay Jar.
