With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
In John 6:28-29, the religious leaders came to Jesus to get his input on a continuing question they liked to talk about: what do we do to work the words of God? His answer: this is the word of God that you believe in him.
God did not send Jesus to tell us stuff to do. God sent Jesus to change our hearts. We do not serve him by doing stuff. We do stuff because we serve him. There is a difference.
People get so caught up in what they are supposed to do that they forget the God they are doing it for. The things they do become more important that the One for whom they do it.
They sing, and pray and listen to the sermon with their eyes open most of the time, they write checks and teach classes. They write commentaries and bring people to God and offer their bodies as sacrifices. They become frantic to do more, when what God really wants is their hearts. Without that change of heart, all of the other is ultimately worthless.
What more can I do, asks the frantic Israel. More burnt offerings? More olive oil offered? Shall I kill my children for you?
No, God replies. I do not want your stuff, he says. I want you.
What does he want of us? He wants our hearts. He wants us to act like him, to be just and merciful and be humble about it all.
The tax collector and the Pharisee in Luke 18 were a good example of this. The Pharisee, a member of the conservative ruling elite of the Jews was proud of himself. I fast twice a week and give a tithe of everything I get.
The tax collector, a member of a class everybody hated because they worked on commission for an occupation force, only said be merciful tome, a sinner. Jesus’ comment: which one was righteous? The one who gave God his heart.
Is the stuff important? Yes. But it is only good if you are the kind of person God wants you to be. Atheists give help to people on occasion, yet it does not make them holy. It merely makes the somewhat generous.
God wants you. And when you give him yourself, you also give him your stuff. But your stuff, you sacrifices, your singing, your money – all this doesn’t matter any unless you give him your heart and change your way of dealing with both him and others.
The stuff you do is not necessarily wasted, of course. It does good things for those you give it to. It is just that without the change inside, the stuff outside will make no difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment
To comment, post your comment and click the anonymous button. It would be nice if you signed it so I could know who you are.
You are welcome to say anything you want as long as it is nice. If I don't like it, or it is ugly, I will take it off, place it into the garbage disposal, grind it up, and allow it to be flushed into the Gulf of Mexico where it will be eaten by a fish and then excreted where it will lie on the bottom of the ocean until it is covered up by other comments.