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Psalm 40:6-8

Psalm 40:6 You do not want sacrifice and tribute offering; you open my ears to listen. You do not ask for a whole burnt offering or a mistake offering.

Psalm 40:7 Then I said, “See, I have come; in the scroll it is written about me.

Psalm 40:8 I want to do your will, my God, and your instruction is deep within me.”

what God really wants

This passage reveals two secrets of personal sanctification. David shows that what God really wants is not to apply the bandage of sacrifice, but to change the heart. For David, this came when he saw God’s rescue. After that, he wanted what God wanted – as revealed in his instruction (תּוֹרָה).

The second secret is not as obvious, but the author of Hebrews understood this text as a prophecy of the coming of Christ, whose sacrifice of himself on the cross took away the first covenant to establish the second.¹ The second covenant involves putting God’s laws on our hearts and writing them on our minds.² What Jesus did for us fulfilled the requirements of the first covenant, and also made it possible for us to be like him – with God’s will as our heart’s desire.

Lord, thank you for your ultimate rescue – the cross.