Bargain? No, God Gives

Saturday Psalm: 5.3.25

Photo by Savvas Stavrinos via Pexels

The Saturday devotion focuses on a part of a psalm – a verse, a phrase, even a single word. We pray that it is a blessing to you.

Psalm 30
v9 “What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?”

While I’d heard stories of people making a deal with the devil, I don’t recall another Bible passage with someone making such a naked attempt to negotiate a deal with God as this one.

The verse offers little in trade, though. Rescue me, Lord, and I’ll repay you with … compliments? That’s pretty weak. Such is the fate of anyone trying to be transactional with God, though. We don’t have anything that he needs, just something he wants: us. He wants our love, and for us to love others. Even the relationship he wants with each of us is for our benefit, not his.

Such an interesting word choice, though, “profit,” the extra value that we get out of a trade. When you’re Lord of All Creation, what extra value could you get?

That view of relationships as primarily transactional is common, though. I thought of that when I compared this psalm with last week’s, which inspired a devotional about speaking to people in their preferred language of music. For another category of people, their native tongue is profit-and-loss statements.

Perhaps this verse is how the Spirit reaches them – or you. If you’re of the mindset to be homo economicus on the way to lasting joy and contentment, I invite you to read Ecclesiastes 5 and 6, such as 6:1-2: “There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.”

Verse 6 of this Psalm of David speaks of a similar pattern. “As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’” Yet the good times don’t last through verse 7. The LORD hid his face, and David was dismayed.

To truly never be moved, we have to shift our focus from what we can offer to what we have been offered. Imagine Jesus reciting this verse: “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit?”

What profit?! He is risen indeed! Because he didn’t stay in the pit, neither must we. Now that’s a sweet deal.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.