Day 33 - Micah

What does God want from you?  This is very, very important.  I mean, what does God really want from you?  We have sort of made up our own list of things that we've decided God's wants from us in modern day Christianity.  We have boiled down faith to a series of behaviors that we (humans) have decided are what Christians do or don't do.  We think God wants us...

• to got to church
• to read our Bibles
• to pray
• to go to Sunday School
• to not cuss
• to not smoke
• to not drink
• to not use drugs
• to not listen to music with 'bad words'
• to not watch movies with 'bad words'
• to not have sex unless you're married
• to memorize the Lord's Prayer
• to wear nice things to church

It's not that those aren't necessarily things to consider.  In fact, many of them have been a part and are a part of my life of faith.  It's just that this list is not THE key things that God really wants.  That's what's disappointing.  We've tried to boil a life of faith down to behaviors, but we picked the wrong behaviors.  God spoke to Micah the prophet to explain the exact things He wants from us:

6 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?


7 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?


8 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 6:6-8)

It was the same story with the Israelites.  They had made following God all about these ritualistic behaviors.  They had made it about how big their sacrifice was.  It's not that sacrifice was not important, it's that sacrifice was supposed to be born out of a life of authentic faith.  What's God saying?  He's saying, "Hey, that's great that you're bringing sacrifices and all, but what I really want is for you to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly."  If you do that, all the rest will fall into place.  And that's the message for us, too.

If we simply live out these 'behaviors' that we've determined are Christian, but don't act justly, don't love mercy and don't walk humbly, then our faith is really just for show and it's a sham.  What really matters is how you treat people and how you carry yourself before others and God.  If you do that, then many of those behaviors will come naturally.  And, you'll be able to figure out through the Spirit which ones are from God and which one are just man-made - after all, I do wear blue jeans nearly every Sunday, so I'm not exactly down with the whole 'wear nice things to church' deal.  But they are nice jeans :).  That's what God really wants from you.  If you come to church but don't do those three things you've missed the point and are just an attender at a gathering.  If you don't cuss, but also don't do those three things, you're not really a person of faith, but you have clean language.  This is the core of faith.  People of faith act and live our justice, we shower others with mercy, and we walk humbly before God because we realize how much He's done for us.  Every other 'behavior' we do flows out from this.