More than US

Something needs to change in our Christian culture today: examples in Isaiah and Amos show us that the more complacent, comfortable, and affluent God’s people were, the more they deviated from His Word and way of living. And this deviation led to God’s intense displeasure with them. Isaiah and Amos are just two of the many prophets that were sent to warn Israel to turn from her disastrous ways: stop living the way those around you are living, stop doing what you want, turn back to God’s way….

A common theme behind Israel’s sin throughout her history is selfishness. It is the same selfishness all mankind – yes, even (and some many say especially), the Church - struggles with today. It is our inherent selfish mindset that tells us we should do what we want, we deserve the best, that our first concern should be our happiness, our safety, our security.

But look at the prophets warning to Israel, and look at the culmination of God’s message in Christ: we are created to glorify Him above all else. We are created to be in relationship with Him and to live for Him. That means that our will, what we want, what we think we deserve, is not our focus. Christ’s message was one of God’s Kingdom coming onto this earth, of a new Way. He fulfilled everything the Old Testament spoke about and the prophets interceded for – He gave the opportunity to truly know God. And along with that, He showed what it looks like to live for God, to live as God desires us to live as His set apart people. Christ showed what it looks like to work for God’s redeeming Kingdom on this earth, and to live as the holy people He created us to be.

So then how should this practically look for us? I have come to realize maybe that means looking at life from Christ’s perspective, not mine. Maybe this means I am not the end, the center, the focus. I think it means that I am part of something so much bigger, so much more glorious than my selfish perspective originally told me…

Instead of seeing God has Someone who lives for our purposes, maybe we can get on our faces before Him as Moses did, aware of His glory and holiness and the fact that there is so much more He desires for my life and for this world than our selfish culture tells us.

Maybe my first thought in thinking about a government policy (possibly such as healthcare?…) shouldn’t be how it will affect me, but maybe it should be held up to the light of God’s Kingdom that He desires us to live under: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) As His set apart people, we are called not to think of ourselves first, but of bringing Him glory by living differently – by living the way Christ showed us how to live.

Maybe instead of thinking of our own financial security or personal safety, we are called to GO. To DO what He has commanded, without fear or what the world will think or what the world can do to us. Does the beauty of my Savior and the glory of my God move me so beyond this world that I do not even think what twice about what it says I “should” do? The world says I deserve a nice house, a safe place to raise my children, a good job so I can live comfortably and be “responsible” with my finances. But what if there is MORE God desires for us as His people? “Go and make disciples of all nations…”(Matthew 28). In Isaiah 1 God says He is “weary” of the offerings of the Israelites, that they have become a “burden” to him. It is clear from Is.1 that the Israelites still observe the religious festivals and holy days God commanded them to observe, that they still bring Him offerings in His temple. Yet He says He is tired of their “vain offerings.” He then goes on to say that He will not hear their prayers, because their hands are full of blood, and commands them to “Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” (Is. 1:16-17) It is clear that, although still doing religious actions, the hearts of the Israelites were not in the right place. They were not truly loving God and living for Him. He says truly living rightly for Him would be to seek justice, correct oppression, plead the case of the fatherless and widow….Is there a similar pattern with the Church today? Do we observe the religious actions our culture tells us are “good,” and then not really live in all that God has for us? Do we do what benefits us, what is “good” for us, and miss out on truly living the Gospel the way Christ showed us we could live it? We need to question the world around us. What is our perspective? Why do we do the things we do? Are they religious actions that our culture tells us are right, but are in actuality self-satisfying and self-pleasing?

Christ showed us how in Him, we can be made new and join our God in the redemption of the world! That means so much more than living for ourselves, than living the way our religious culture often tells us we “deserve” to live. We can go higher, wider, deeper in the love of Christ to know Him and know what it looks like to join Him in working for the fatherless and oppressed, in working to bring His Kingdom onto this earth:

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings…” (Phil. 3:10).

Do we really want to know Christ? There is such power in really knowing Him and in sharing in His resurrection and getting to fellowship with Him in sufferings – and He has given us an opportunity to truly know Him and fellowship with Him through living like Him! Are we living in that awesome reality, in the reality that there is more? It is not about us – it is about His glory, about living in the new Way He showed us in Christ, about living out the salvation we received in Him by bringing His Kingdom onto this earth everyday in how we live and breathe and move. We live for more. There is more He has for us than us.