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All God wants!

18th June 2010 by Rusty Hodges

"I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, you pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick on your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego music. When was the last time you sang to me?

Do you know what I want?

I want justice – oceans of it.

I want fairness – rivers of it.

That's what I want. That's all I want."

- Amos 5:21-24

Ouch! Did that sting you as much as it did me?

I was challenged recently by this passage written by the prophet Amos.

I may be a little weird but I actually enjoy most church services and I have been involved in church life since I was born. To read that God can't stand our religious festivities seems illogical to me.

Church is all about God isn't it. Well, the answer should be yes. But it our day it can be about the performance, whether you wear white socks with your uniform, it may be going through the motions church with no real engagement with God.

It's sad that Christians, of which the church is made up, are often seen as a bunch of hypocrites saying one thing and doing another. We're called to be salt and light in the world. We're called to stand out. But so often we don't.

God doesn't merely want our service. He doesn't want our long winded prayers. He doesn't even want us to be in a life group if it's simply for the sake of being and doing these things.

God wants our hearts. He wants our hearts to look to justice. He wants our hearts so that through us he can break injustice and bring his mercy to world in need. Now don't get me wrong God is not bagging the church. He loves the church it's his bride after all, but He wants our hearts to beat with justice.

If we really love God then we will do what he wants. Biblical Justice asks: Are things being made right for the poor and the least powerful, the least 'deserving'? Biblical justice focuses on right relationships, not right rules.

Let Justice Roll – it's all God wants.