No Bull

If you know me, you know that I love a good turn on a word.  This morning, as I was reading from the Psalms, I came across one expressing both light humor and deep truth: "I have no need of a bull from your stall..." (Ps 50:9).  If your mind works at all like mine, you immediately saw the turn: God doesn't have any use for our bull - you know, the kind of half-hearted, insincere when we go to church but never really show up.  Or, when you read at your Bible or read into it but never really seek to get His message from it.

Of course, the bull David was referring to was an actual bovine that was sacrificed to God not a euphemism meaning suggesting a lack of true belief or commitment.  However, the meaning is not far off.  God was calling out their hypocrisy, their lack of true belief and commitment.  This is where the turn is: Israel's offering of barnyard bovines and our offering bloviated (like that word? hot air) bull, are one and the same: Insincere hypocrisy.

God listens beyond our words and hears the song of our hearts: "The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught" (Isa 29:13).  When we go through the motions without having any real fire in our bellies, we give God motion sickness: "So, because you are lukewarm---neither hot nor cold---I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (Rev 3:16).  That phrase could accurately be translated "vomit you out of my mouth."  Nice mental picture, huh?

But here is the meat of this message: While we are half-heartedly reading our Bibles, mindlessly reciting prayers, meagerly giving a contribution or physically showing up at the church building while mentally on the golf course or the lake, God is having none of it.  He has no no need or any stomach for our bull.

You know what it is?  God, like all loving parents, desires a loving response from his children.  Anything less than that is a weariness to his heart that longs for a real connection with ours, not a half-hearted attempt to pacify.  "...understand what the Lord’s will is....be filled with the Spirit...and make music from your heart to the Lord" (Eph 5:17-19).  Jus' Say'n, no bull.