Long before there were interstate highways, many of us who grew up in the south remember signs on the highways throughout the countryside stating in huge letters, “GET RIGHT WITH GOD!” We do not see these signs as often as in the past, but the question they bring up is just as important today as it always was. “How do we ‘get right with God?’”
That question has existed since
the arrival of Homo Sapiens on the earth. “Exactly how do we know; how can we
know God’s will for us? We who are Christians have been taught, and believe
that reading the Bible, and attending worship, singing hymns, and receiving
communion point us in the right direction. I believe this is true as far as it
goes. The Bible and worship definitely point us toward Jesus who points us
toward God the Creator, but is this the answer or is this the “doorway to the
answer?” To dig deeper, lets look back at the eighth Century B.C. Hebrew prophet,
Micah, and see what he teaches the people of Israel and then follow his
teaching forward 900 years to Jesus and his teachings.
We read in the sixth chapter of
the book of the Micah, his instructions reminding the people of God’s love for
them and God’s promise that he will be their God and they will be His people.
Then Micah continues: “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself
before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a
year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of
thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6:6-7)
In this passage Micah recounts
as I just did the details of the worship of his day, the details the people
believe will get them “right with God.” He does not say, don’t do these things,
but he implies that there is something more than this, or perhaps, he is saying
that there is something less. Micah continues in verse 8:
“He has told you, O mortal,
what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to
love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
That’s it? Something that
simple? Yes, that’s it, it’s that simple. However, simple is not necessarily
the same thing as easy. To be “right with God” in this fashion, we must
recognize that humility means realizing that we are not always right, that the
poor aren’t necessarily poor because they are lazy. We will begin to realize
that God is bigger than we can ever ask or imagine and that He welcomes people
into the kingdom of God whom we would exclude. Again, simple but not easy.
God’s justice reminds us that
human laws do not always bring justice to the poor and oppressed and challenges
us to work together to change some of society’s laws. It would be easier if we
could just pray, study the Bible, and sing hymns, but even Jesus teaches us
that this is not enough. When the lawyer asks Jesus what the first and greatest
commandment is he answers:
“You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and you shall Love your
neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)
Again simple, but not easy.
Thanks be to God that Jesus promises to be with us always, even to the end of
time, giving us God’s help to carry out these simple, but not easy, tasks so
that we might “be right with God,” and with God’s People.
