Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos 5:23-24
Have you ever wondered if going to church and singing songs pleased God? Certainly we need to praise God and gather together, but if it doesn’t impact the way we live then we might just be making noise to God.
Many of us clean ourselves up for church, sing the right songs and know the right answers, but the truth of God isn’t actually a part of our daily lives. There is a disconnect between what we know about God and how we live.
A correct knowledge of God is meaningless without a transformed heart and mind. And when our hearts and minds are transformed through Jesus, that leads us into the resurrected life.
The resurrected life pleases God.
A resurrected life is the life of Jesus. Did Jesus worship God without action? Did Jesus sing songs without doing good? Of course not. Jesus’ life was full of spending time with His Father and living justly. But did He bring about justice in the way we normally think about justice? No. He didn’t go into the court system and address the law enforcement (Roman rule was bad news), instead he showed love and grace to the outcasts and challenged the ‘self-righteous’ religious people to do the same (sometimes in very mean language). Therefore the resurrected life reflects Jesus in that way. It doesn’t mean that we neglect praising God, it means that we go about our lives worshiping God in a way that shows the immeasurable grace and love of Jesus to everyone. Loving like Jesus challenges the self-righteous, whether they are self- righteous religious people, self-righteous business owners, self-righteous politicians, or self-righteous friends/family, and so on.
Self-righteous people, on some level, trust in their works. But we must trust in the God who came not for the righteous but for the sinners.
How might that look for us this week?
REDEEM THE TIME 