Who Needs Whom? - Psalm 50:7-15

"Listen, My people, and I will speak; I will testify against you, Israel. I am God, your God. I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or for your burnt offerings, which are continually before Me...If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and everything in it is Mine...Sacrifice a thank offering to God, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call on Me in a day of trouble; I will rescue you, and you will honor Me." (Psalm 50:7-15, HCSB)

God did not need the sacrifices of Israel to be exalted.

Since God already owned every kind of animal, He did not need their sacrifices to make Him glorious or almighty.

Yet, Israel continually offered sacrifices to God.

So, a lack or religiosity was not Israel's main problem. They certainly knew how to be religious!

The problem was that their religious practices were not transformative! The burnt offerings sacrificed in worship to God did not seem to make a difference in them.

So their sacrifices made no difference to God!

And, today, our best religious practices do not exalt God. Even being our religious best does not make God more glorious or almighty!

God is God, Exalted, Glorious,and Almighty, regardless of anything we can say or do.

So, what God was trying to tell Israel then, and us today, is that it's not He Who needs us, but we who need Him!

God does not need our worship or our religious practices to somehow make Him omnipotent. He IS omnipotent!

Our worship is a celebration of God's majesty, His exalted state of being. Our worship is a pledge of our allegiance to Him, a surrender of our lives and wills to His authority.

We cannot give God something He needs, but we can offer ourselves fully and completely to God and then He will be everything we need.  

"Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1, HCSB).