Tag: Spiritual

The Significance of a Baby

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In a tiny, insignificant town a baby was born. His first cries were drowned by the loving and cackling of farm animals and by the busy merriment of hostel guests just the other side of the wall. His young mother wrapped his flailing arms in linen strips stored nearby for the care of newborn lambs, the only material available after a long journey, and lay him in the sturdy but cold stone trough that held the animals’ feed. The apparently illegitimate child of a carpenter from a backwater village and his fiance, his arrival made no impression on anyone but his frazzled parents.

It made no impression, that is, until a choir of angels in a blaze of light sang hallelujah choruses to shepherds in a silent field outside of town. Until those unremarkable herdsmen showed up to that noisy, smelly stable with shouts of joy and no sheep. Until they began rushing around grabbing everyone they met and telling an impossible story about an infant Messiah in a manger.

Thirty years would pass, and that strange story would be forgotten along with the nondescript baby wrapped in sheep linen. Infant years in which the God of Heaven squalled and writhed like any helpless infant, learned to grasp and walk and babble like any toddler, years of scraped knees and lost teeth like any child. His nose ran and his tummy hurt; he learned to use a saw and hammer without hurting himself and memorized scripture with other boys in the synagogue. He cried and laughed, ate when he was hungry, slept when he grew tired. His younger siblings teased and quarreled with him, and his parents developed gray hair teaching them all to be productive members of society.

At the end of the thirty years the world would once again hear about this boy become man, would be shown once more their Messiah. His death would carry a weight and a promise that could never be forgotten, and few would remember those years in the shadow of the cross. Yet it was the baby who was heralded by Heaven, and those quiet years among the working class of an ignored village that formed the ground beneath that cross. The God of infinite power made himself helpless, utterly dependent on the care of His own creation. The God of infinite knowledge and wisdom painstakingly learned in the mind and body of a child. The God of infinite presence spent a human life within the bounds of a few square miles, spent His days under the cramped roof of a petty craftsman. The God of unimaginable majesty walked in the dust and sweated in the workshop. The God that created the universe chose to be born with nothing rather than materialize in grandeur. That insignificant baby in an unassuming stable was the reason we are able to see the cross and the impact of the empty tomb.

Hebrews 4:15 (CSB): For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 2:17–18 (CSB): Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement, for the sins of the people.
18 For since he himself has suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.

Outside the Boundaries

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When Paul wrote to the Christians in the city of Rome, they were beginning to fracture as a group from the pressures of human diversity. As capital of the empire, Rome was a cultural conglomerate. Trade and politics brought representatives from every conceivable background into close proximity, and the call of Christ left no group out. As usual with humans, most found reconciling their cultural heritage with spiritual existence in Christ confusing. As a result, each group brought a different set of traditions, different religious customs, different systems of laws that they expected to reign supreme, and the groups squabbled constantly about whose expectations best pleased God.

The Christians who came from a Jewish background particularly struggled to rise above it. For millenia they had been held up as the nation that represented God, the only nation whose entire political and social structure had been instituted directly by God. Despite recognizing Jesus as the promised Messiah, despite understanding that all nations were now welcomed into the kingdom, many were convinced that the only path into the kingdom was through continuing rigid observance of Sinai law and legal traditions that time had built upon it.

Paul wrote an entire letter explaining the fallacy of this thinking to an increasingly divided church. He reminded these people surrounded by lawmaking on a daily basis that laws had limits. Laws governing physical behaviors only exist within specific physical boundaries. For example, marriage is a legally binding contract between two people, but when one or the other dies, the contract ends since the dead person can no longer fulfill his or her responsibilities. By the same token, failure to behave within the boundaries of a physical system comes with clearly defined consequences, the greatest being forfeiture of life as the price for treason.

The Sinai Law had been no exception, had even exceeded all other systems in its specificity and in the weight placed upon infraction. Other systems were instituted by humans with human enforcers; the Sinai Law was instituted by God Himself and enforced directly by His hand. Its design, as Paul reminded the Romans, was to emphasize how deeply enslaved to sin humanity truly is, how treasonous to our Creator we behave on a daily basis. The price for such treason had already been demonstrated by an incalculable flood that claimed the lives of an entire earth full of people and reshaped an entire world. And even that was not a great enough consequence, as mankind habitually repeated the same treason.

Jesus, God in the frame of humanity, laid His own head under the executioners blade having committed no treason against Himself. His incomprehensible purity canceled the price for our treason, but only if we recognize it. With no more price, no more lawful consequence, the system of law became obsolete, unenforced by the Creator and unenforceable by humans. While the physical world remains, humans will continue to shuffle boundaries and systems devised by ourselves for the purpose of governing our physical existence. These are necessary for those who cannot see beyond the physical existence and backed by God in so far as they are founded in His character. However, they are still prisons that enslave us to our basest desires.

God’s prescribed system, its purpose extinct after the execution of its consequences, ceased to exist except as a memorial of His character. With the ultimate price paid, we have the opportunity to plead guilty without fear of punishment. Jesus stands holding the prison doors open from the outside. Our minds have to step outside with Him, outside of the need for physical boundaries and into a character not our own. We are changed, guilt and the reason for it left behind. We see ourselves and all humans as He sees us, so limited in our capacity that we can never hope for perfection, but loved so deeply that childlike adoration and imitation are more than enough for Him. The shackles of fear and insecurity that enslave us to our inadequacy disintegrate, and we are embraced as long-lost children.

Keep the Feast

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As Jesus prepared to face the cross, He blessed the Passover meal one last time with His closest friends. As he snapped the crisp bread in pieces to share and raised His cup with theirs, He told them what those tokens had always symbolized. It wasn’t the first time He used bread and vintage as symbols for something greater; rather it was a final explanation of God’s grace.

In the book of John, He referred to Himself as the Bread of Life. The same book records a later conversation in which He named Himself the Vine and those faithful to Him branches of that Vine. Just as the liquid pressed from the grapes of a vine fulfilled the covenant, or promise, inherent in the vines nature, the blood that drained from the crucified body of the Christ fulfilled the covenant inherent in His nature as Creator and Savior. He gave Himself to restore life to our starving souls in the same way He provided bread to feed starving bodies in the wilderness.

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The apostle Paul wrote to the people of God in the city of Corinth about a terrifying problem they were facing. When these people interacted with each other, gathered together as a group, they began to squabble over differences and gravitate into physically similar subgroups. The rich ignored the poor, those with similar backgrounds ostracized those of other origins, God-given talents and callings were given hierarchy based on human perception and preference. In an effort to recenter their fractured unity, Paul explained that Christ Himself is the body, then explained that each of them with their different backgrounds, social situations, and gifts were parts of Him. Just as all the smaller parts of a human body are necessarily different and yet indispensable to its function, all of the parts of Christ are equally indispensable. In the same conversation, Paul told the confused Corinthians that, although they physically gathered together to feast, they had forgotten in whose body they belonged. They were attempting to feast without seeing the food, and were sickening from spiritual malnourishment.

The Israelites under the Sinai law had been blessed with symbols intended to guard their memories and focus their future. One of these symbols was the Ark of the Covenant bearing the Place of Mercy. It was the token of God’s presence with His people, but before long it had become the focal point of their attention. When war threatened, they carried the Ark itself into battle at the head of their armies as if it’s physical presence alone could win the day. They never thought to speak to the One it represented. When Jesus told His friends to eat the bread and drink from the vine in His memory, He signified an intimacy they would experience with Him that surpassed any experienced since God and man walked the Garden side by side. It was the illustration of an eternal, incomprehensible banquet, just as the Ark had been the illustration of unfathomable protection. For the Corinthians, that illustration had become the idol carried into battle as surely as the Ark had been centuries before.

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In the same letter, Paul told the Corinthians to keep the feast. They were bread, but had begun to bloat like yeast bread from their misplaced focus. He warned them that the only way to be part of the Bread was to remember Him, to recenter on Him alone. He was the sacrifice, He was the promise, He was the body. He, and they, were the feast.

The same is true 2000 years later, in a world with the same root distractions and misunderstandings. We, like them, can just as frighteningly become enamored of illustrations and forgetful of their Source. We bite and devour one another over concerns strictly bound to our physical forms and surroundings while feeding ourselves spiritual air. It’s time we learned again to recognize the Body and keep the life-giving Feast.

Service or Advertisement?

We’ve all seen them, the advertising campaigns purporting awareness of some issue or another, some need. We’ve seen the politicians showing up at events or businesses when there is personal advantage to be gained. Many platitudes are exchanged, few practical or permanent solutions are implemented. Usually the one who benefits most from such is the supposed benefactor.

In the early weeks following the events of Pentecost, the newly faithful experienced a heady sense of fellowship, of unity. This togetherness extended to the sharing of physical resources so that the needs of all were met. Their unfeigned generosity spoke to the masses, drawing more and more people who wanted to experience what changed these people so profoundly, what made them so selfless.

Not all attracted to the expression of faith understood its source. They saw the overwhelming response to kindness and wanted that sort of attention for themselves. Ananias and Sapphira turned an everyday business transaction into a personal advertisement by donating less and calling it more. Simon, who before conversion had built a life on pretending to solve people’s problems for personal gain, even in his sincere desire to change treated the power of God as just another commodity for enriching him personally.

This attitude was hardly new to humanity, or to those publicly bearing God’s name. Absalom, resentful that his well-intentioned but questionable behavior had not been sanctioned, turned what should have been his responsibility to help serve the people into a way to manipulate their perception of right and wrong. He traded on visible work to increase his personal authority and punish the good man who held him accountable.

During the times of kings and prophets, many of the leaders of Israel turned the gathering of resources meant for service into their own personal stranglehold over the lives and needs of the people. In response, the people hoarded for themselves, forgetting concern for anything outside of their own needs and wants. The entire nation vaunted its perceived wealth while abusing God’s generosity with grasping avarice.

It’s easy to see the comparison with such behavior in the examples of modern societal hypocrisy mentioned above, but those claiming faith are not any more immune to selfishness than anyone else in history. Every day some one or more of us holds our reasonable service hostage to our insistence on personal control. We may work, but only with a spotlight and a mirror pointed at ourselves. Godliness, or at least behavior that makes us stand out, is our commodity, and we are unsatisfied unless any paying forward occurs within that harsh circle of artificial light.

A man named Joseph set the greatest example of service to those early first century faithful, yet no one remembers his name. It is mentioned only once in the entirety of scripture. This man apparently didn’t have much of monetary substance because God highlighted his donation of the proceeds of one field as remarkable in the midst of an entire church sharing their resources. When a murderer turned preacher was ostracized by understandably frightened people of God, this man offered opportunity and connection, his own character standing as testimony for that of the other. When a boy missionary failed to persevere in the face of opposition and hardship on his first attempt, this man fought others for the boy’s second chance, and when none would take the risk, offered that opportunity himself. As a result that boy is mentioned later as an unshakeable defender of faith and supporter of the faithful. This man whose name is forgotten is known by the term of affection used for him by God’s chosen messengers: Barnabas, or “son of encouragement.” It is his impact on others, his unwavering desire to build others up, that is remembered.

If Barnabas’s first concern had been to draw attention to himself or even to the church as an image of perfection, he would never have even considered supporting a murderer, much less one who had last been seen trying to kill the faithful. By human standards, that sort of person not only looks bad, but would draw all sorts of negative attention from the murderers’ former associates. If his priority had been to rise in authority, even just among the faithful, he would never have stood up for those with damaged reputations. Instead, he would have bowed and scraped and heralded the doubts of respected but mistaken men who failed to recognize God’s called.

Unlike Ananias and Saphira, Simon, Absalom, or the Israelite leaders, Barnabas was not a walking advertisement. He didn’t paste labels on his work, didn’t send out shiny mailers denigrating the character of others or campaigning for a following, didn’t spy on others to make sure they didn’t mess up. He simply filled needs, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. He served without reservation, trusting the God who redeemed him to discern hearts and build a people greater than human bounds.

The Burden of the Blame Game

When Adam and Eve were faced with the exposure of their poor choice in the garden, they were overwhelmed with guilt. They suddenly knew the weight of disobedience, the loss of rebellion, and in a childish effort to rid themselves of those feelings they began pointing fingers. “It’s her fault.” “It’s his fault.” “It’s your fault for making us.” I’m surprised they didn’t say it was the fruit’s fault, as that seems to be one of the most common excuses for bad behavior these days.

Every day I hear it. “X thing is the reason for y behavior.” “The world would be a better place if X thing didn’t exist.” “I knew someone who used X thing and ended up struggling with Y problem, so never use X thing.” It all sounds like a child calling a toy stupid after breaking it. If it isn’t some object at the tip of our pointed finger, it’s an expression or a poor unfortunate soul.

In the garden, Satan knew the power of conscience and exploited it, twisting need and trust into desperation and despair. The choice Adam and Eve made to eat the fruit was made in innocence, the innocence of a child wanting the privileges of adulthood without the ability to meet the responsibilities. The choice they made to pass blame was made in full awareness and with intention, and it was that choice that cost them the garden.

The fruit that God forbade didn’t offer all knowledge as Satan claimed. It was simply an object, a symbol of trust that God had all knowledge and used it in love for the children He chose to create. It was a reminder that God wanted to love and be loved. It was proof that God carried all responsibility as Creator of all our characteristics. When eaten against His warning, the fruit simply brought pain into that reminder. All Adam and Eve gained was the weight of a responsibility they could never carry.

Ever since the horrible day that Adam and Eve had to experience the burden of their choices, God has presented demonstration after demonstration that guilt is not His goal. Time after time He showed His children pictures of redemption. His heartbroken words to Cain calling him back from sin into relationship fell on deaf ears. The sacrificial goat to symbolically carry the sin of an entire nation away from the center of worship failed to make an impression on a people drowning in denial. The Son of God speaking redemption from the cross itself only enraged a religious culture addicted to the power of guilt. The never-failing presence of God at the seat of Mercy, in the cloud that led them, in the angel army that stood between them and their enemies, in the impossible queen of a pagan oppressor, or in an unassuming son of a carpenter went unappreciated.

Today we carry guilt like a badge of honor. We drown in victimhood to Satan’s lies, blaming whatever item that has been misused or whatever platitude we have misapplied or anyone else available for the consequences of choices we have made. We claim we shouldn’t bear consequences because we were innocent, we were misled, we were confused, all because in our deepest soul we know that we can never make it right. We can never save ourselves. We can never eliminate the knowledge of our betrayal of trust. This is Satan’s victory.

No one and nothing in this world contains the power to either impose or remove guilt. No object or person can bear the responsibility for our choices. Any effort to place that burden on any earthly being or object leads only to more misery. Only the Source of power and knowledge is capable of not only bearing it, but eliminating it entirely. Our part is simply to preserve our innocence by trusting Him, not acknowledging or giving credence to Satan’s whispers, and choosing to use the very best of our little in gratitude for His responsibility without dwelling on our mistakes. There is no guilt, there is no burden, there is no blame game in God’s embrace.

Making Ourselves Comfortable

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The book of Micah, and indeed most of the prophetic books, were written to the Israelite nation, to the people claimed by God to be His physical representation on Earth. Unfortunately, what Micah had to say to them was not complimentary. The message he brought from God declared that they had made themselves comfortable on God’s shoulders and were about to be ripped apart.

This did not mean that the nation was prosperous, or that they found comfort in God’s presence and provision. It did not mean that, like a child with a parent, they ran to God with every need. The Israelites had taken the reigns of their own well-being, each person doing whatever brought him or her the most of what they wanted. Leaders had taken their God-given responsibilities and made themselves guns for hire to the highest bidder. Even the teaching of God’s principles was held hostage to their desire to please themselves. Priests refused to impart knowledge or perform sacrifice without payment. Prophets charged for their preaching and, in order to preserve their income stream, delivered whatever message would bind their customers to them.

That did not mean they told people what they wanted to hear. Contrary to what we’re often told, that’s not really what solidifies power over others. We can see this repeated in the behavior of the Jewish leaders in the first century of this age. Enforcement of legal minutae required micromanagement of people’s lives. Failure to perfectly comply meant expensive consequences. Effort to perfectly comply required constant consultation with and subservience to these micromanagers. Because there were disagreements between leaders, factions arose, each faction trying to enforce their own sets of rules and solidify their own position, leading to even more reliance upon leaders to alleviate confusion and simplify decision.

The apostle Paul called the early church to account on numerous occasions for slipping down that same path. Christians who were born from a Jewish background were so uncomfortable that they sought control over their new spiritual family through a dead legal system. Those who escaped that trap latched onto specific teachers and their opinions, fawning over and repeating those to the exclusion and oppression of any others. Some even clung to physical wealth and position as the ultimate success, and used God’s principles as excuses for their bullying.

In every single one of these examples, people had aimed at the wrong target. They confused their comfort zones with the peace that comes from surrender. Peace is not easy, and surrender is not comfortable. True reliance on God challenges every instinct and preconceived notion mankind shares. We have to look past the limits of our individual existence, our immediate satisfaction, and our physical senses. Forcing others unto our comfort zone is wrong; claiming God’s authority and blessing for it is the ultimate selfishness, the ultimate godlessness. It is making ourselves comfortable on the shoulders of God, placing ourselves over the head of our Creator to avoid having our self-service challenged.

Unveiled

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II Cor. 3:13-18; Ex. 34:34-35

When Moses descended from the presence of God for the second time, bringing the record of God on slabs of stone, the people of Israel avoided him in terror. Though Moses himself, having spent so much time bathed in the glory of God and having no desire for power for himself, was completely unaware that Glory beamed from his own face, the people could see it all too well. The selfish fear that drove them to cover their ears at the voice of God held them apart from His presence in Moses. From that time forward, Moses was only able to speak with God without covering his face, a shadowy reminder of exactly how great a separation existed between God and the people through whom He had chosen to work His will.

Like the veil shading Moses’s face from a people unwilling to approach God, the system of governance included in that stone record served as a curtain over their reluctant hearts. Every act prescribed within it emphasized the darkness human choices had allowed to stain the world, contrasting it starkly with the pure light of the perfect God. Every event in the future of the nation would prove the necessity of the rigid and often harsh methods required under that legal system in order to prove desire for connection with God. Even such unmistakable symbols of their need were twisted to be self-serving, and in the end they resorted to murderous destruction rather than expose themselves to His light.

When God Himself stepped from His grave in physical form and returned to Heaven in the cloud of glory that had filled the Tabernacle and shone through Moses’s face, the need for that separation to be emphasized ended. The hope and promise that underlay everything the nation of Israel experienced became present reality. Many, uneasy in the freedom and open communion found in the spirit of the resurrected Son, clung to the rigidity of the Israelite legal system. As God ripped the covering, the barrier, away they hung on for dear life and so barricaded themselves from true fellowship with Him.

Those who let longing for God outweigh their fear became like Moses, transformed into a vessel for the glory of God. The selfishness that held darkness between them and God was banished. The need for the rigid rules and rituals engraved on stone slabs was burned away by the fire of God’s presence.

Unlike Moses, who wore the veil himself as a reminder to others, our veil is only a reflection of ourselves. If we maintain a separation from God’s offered freedom by clinging to physical structures that keep control within our hands, we have a veil of our own choosing. Only by relinquishing all control, by exchanging fear for desperate longing, are we unveiled and able to stand in the Glory that is God.

Cultural Religion

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As someone who enjoys learning history, I have noticed a human tendency to confuse culture with morality. Every society throughout history has developed its own cultural norms: clothing styles, hair styles, living arrangements, traditions, entertainment, etc. These cultural norms are usually responses to environmental factors like economics, weather, or topography. The key word regarding any cultural element is “develop.” Environmental factors change. People migrate to and from other areas, bringing their own cultural elements with them.

In every instance of change, conflict arises between cultures. Both hold the other to be immoral in their standards. (Pants instead of skirts?! Rock and roll?!) The children exposed equally to both easily absorb elements of both creating an entirely new culture, considered immoral by both original cultures alike.

In the midst of all of this cultural change and conflict, actual moral principles are often discarded in order to defend culture. Life is only valued among those holding to the desired culture. Property is only protected for those who embrace the desired culture. Kindness is only allowed or acknowledged between those of the same culture. Wear the prescribed clothes, enjoy the prescribed entertainment, speak the prescribed language, practice the prescribed traditions, work the prescribed jobs. Different is evil and must be prevented at all costs.

The God-created will and capacity to choose combined with our longing for security and belonging repeatedly embroils humanity in this turmoil. Our choices become our religion, and our religion becomes a prison. We cast even our own freedom to choose into a dungeon dug out of our own fear, shackled by compulsion that only feeds our terror and rage.

God created us with the ability to be creative, to adapt, to learn, to make independent decisions based on both need and desire. Like a single human body is made up of millions of cells with different functions, of hundreds of parts performing different tasks, so is humanity made up of incredible variety. What one cannot do, another can. What one cannot understand another can teach. What one cannot imagine another can produce. Without what the one does, the other cannot meet its potential.

If we never allow any challenge to our cultural norms, we leave no room for self-reflection. Without self-reflection we cannot grow, and growth is essential to human life. Traditions are not evil. New is not evil. Turning either into a religion that vilifies anyone else is.

Romans 14:16–20 (CSB): Therefore, do not let your good be slandered, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ in this way is acceptable to God and receives human approval. So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another.

A unified human body cannot by nature include only cells of the exact same type. It is unified precisely because of its many different parts working in harmony. Humanity cannot by nature be uniform either. Only by celebrating and harmonizing our myriad individuality can we function as a unified whole. Culture cannot become religion.

A Child’s Mite

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Once when Jesus was teaching in the temple courtyard he watched people coming to leave their tithes in the treasury boxes. Apparently that had become something of a show, with large amounts being brought. I imagine that, considering Pharisaical policing of detail, a great deal of arguing and haggling over correct calculations occurred around the temple gates where the boxes stood. While all that display was going on, a beggar woman entered the courtyard. A widow with no family to care for her, she belonged to the ranks of the needy for whom those treasury funds were supposed to provide. She quietly moved to the boxes and dropped in two mites, tiny copper coins that equalled a fraction of today’s penny. When Jesus praised her faith as an example to his followers, He pointed out that those tiny coins were all she owned yet she offered them for others.

This morning my eight year old son dug into his wallet for money to give. He brought out a handful of wadded cash, including a ten dollar bill that I knew was a treasured possession. I asked him if he was sure, if he knew what was in his hand and really wanted to give it. His response was immediate. “Oh yes, I want to put my ten dollar bill in!” When the basket was passed, that ten and a few ones besides went in accompanied by a delighted grin. The almost empty wallet went back in his pocket and occasioned no further thought from its owner.

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Like the widow, my little son depends entirely on others for his needs. The money in his wallet is carefully hoarded from birthday gifts or “pay” for helping family members. Opportunities to increase that little stash are few and far between, but that never even entered his mind. In his mind, the money placed in that basket is a gift to God, and he wanted God to have all of it.

Both the widow and my son understood that something much greater than their mite covered their needs. They knew that God’s love holds far more power than a handful of cash or any physical wealth. In the simplicity of that trust, no room existed for questions or calculations. All that they thought of was what they could offer in love. What they truly offered was not two tiny coins or a ten dollar bill, and their gift filled more than a single moment. They offered a faithful heart and filled eternity with it.

Performance Worship

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The term “performance worship” appears frequently in certain religious circles, usually referring to specific behaviors or practices that carry emotional appeal. The term is something of an oxymoron, but the idea of insincere approach to God – of “performing” rather than offering – is far from neglected. God addresses this error in his people over and over throughout their history, and it looks very different from our usual definition.

When Saul faced the Philistines near Gilgal, the army he led was far smaller and less well equipped than that of the enemy. Samuel was delayed in arriving to appeal for God’s help, and some lost courage. Saul was so concerned that his ragtag soldiers would flee and he would lose his newly appointed kingship that he decided to perform a public sacrifice. He wasn’t concerned about God’s help; if he had been he wouldn’t have been worried about losing the army. He performed the ritual for his own benefit, to make himself look connected to God so that the soldiers would have more confidence in him and not run away. When Samuel did arrive shortly after this performance, he told Saul that it had cost him everything God had so carefully prepared for him. Offering the sacrifice was not wrong, any more than Samuel offering it was wrong. The sole difference lay in the fact that Saul’s act was one of performance rather than worship.

The prophet Micah wrote to the people of God during their height as a kingdom, yet he rebuked them. Temple life and ritual thrived, and the smoke of meat and incense rose constantly. Unfortunately, at the same time, rulers and judges took bribes and made decisions that increased their own power; priests and teachers worked for hire and said whatever made sure they would continue to be paid. They did all this claiming God’s authority and protection, using His Name and His proscribed rituals as a grand performance solidifying their position and control. Micah told them that no amount of blood or incense, not even the surrender of their own children, could convince God of their righteousness in that state. What He expected was both far simpler and far more difficult. They had to love Him more than themselves and place their trust in Him rather than in their own control.

The Pharisees in the time that Jesus walked the earth considered themselves the enforcers of law. They policed the smallest aspects of everyday life, demanding details that were not specified by God but that created an appearance of difference from “heathens.” They wore special clothes, recognized only teachers in specific hierarchies that had evolved from their own conceits, and quickly suppressed anything that even hinted at disagreement. Jesus called them whitewashed graves, and said they were like cups that had been polished outside but the inside had never even been washed. The Pharisees offered nothing of themselves to God; instead they performed dramatically to draw eyes to themselves and ensure their continuing stranglehold on the hearts and minds of the people.

This performance, this outward appearance, not only had nothing to do with holiness, but actively shut the doors of Heaven on souls who might otherwise have seen God. All the attention had been diverted; all the focus followed the wrong leader. Jesus said that such performers expended all their efforts on making converts, but that they weren’t converting souls for God; they were turning people into the children of Hell.

God isn’t looking for performers, for individuals who love ritual and law but have no love for God. He doesn’t care about traditions, even those intended to create an appearance of holiness. Those are performance, not worship. God wants hearts crushed under the weight of separation that reach out for Him in need and longing. He wants souls eager to see Him, so eager they never stop looking, so eager they see His work at every turn. He wants minds humbled by failure that beg for mercy. He wants people so filled with gratitude for salvation that they exude joy in every way that He created possible. He wants true worship that allows His light to shine in them like in Moses’ face on Mt. Sinai.