Being God’s children

Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:

What did I like about today’s passage?

This challenging book is a revelation of God’s fatherly heart for people. The key to understanding it is at the beginning: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.”

I love that God makes clear that the problem was not that people turned away from religion, but from him. As Simon Gillebaud said at Severn in his talk “Choose Life”, God has never switched from being about Old Testament rules to New Testament relationship. It’s always been about relationship. The whole point of Old Testament law was to point people towards God so they could, through relationship, take on his values, see the world the way he does and love with his love.

But Israel was not doing this. So their religious observance was nonsense, and God wanted them to “stop bringing meaningless offerings!” Instead they should “learn to do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed.”

Would people be able to work this out on their own? It seemed unlikely, so God was going to intervene in unmissable ways. Israel would suffer and be forced to ask why. If people turned to God in this painful process, they would not only find answers but also hope.

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

God provides for people in a parental way, with stuff, guidance, discipline and, ultimately, relationship. He is not looking for people casually to acknowledge his existence and follow some religious rules. He wants people (including us) to know and rely on him so that we can be strengthened by him to live better and do more than we can in our own mortal strength.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

The way I share about my faith is too often limited to comfy chat about activity, meetings, projects and habits. Yesterday I had a great conversation with someone whose faith in God dropped away as a child because all they could see was a church which did not seem adequate or strongly enough empowered to make a difference in the social justice they spent their adult life pursuing. They had seen religion and heard talk of relationship but had not been touched by the passion of God’s heart, let alone accepted his authority to drive the changes they were looking for. I want them to meet God, not just ideas about God! So I need my reliance on and relationship with God to grow, so the Spirit can speak through that.

Who am I going to share this with?

This person and others who know, trust and work with them over time.