Jesus quoted
this passage twice in the gospel of Matthew because of its significance to His
day. I believe each generation of Christianity faces the challenge of this verse.
Too often, I find it easy to put my Christianity on auto-pilot and simply do
the motions each week. This is exactly what Jesus and Hosea was warning God’s
people against. Outwardly, they did the ceremonies, the rituals. Technically,
they were doing what God had commanded. But there is more to Christianity than
simply a to-do list. Just as Paul said there is more to love than simply acts
of self-sacrifice (1 Cor 13).
In Hosea’s
day, the people still did the sacrifices, they offered God the sheep from their
herds. In their minds, they were worshipping God. But while they praised God,
their hearts were far from Him. They were not committed individually or as a
nation to put God’s ways first in their day to day life. One moment, they would
offer a sacrifice up to God and the next, they would cheat the poor and oppress
the less fortunate. They saw their duty to God as finished when they walked
away from the altar. They thought they had God fooled.
In Jesus’
day, the Pharisees were hounding Jesus’ for spending time ministering to the
spiritual needs of tax collectors and sinners (those whom they deemed too far
gone for God’s grace – the untouchables). While they so quickly shut people out
of God’s kingdom, they would condemn Jesus for breaking their tedious interpretations
of the Mosaic law. They couldn’t see the discrepancy between hating their
fellow man and overzealously defending some minute, blown-out-of-proportion
command.
Both sets of
groups were missing the point. It’s so easy to do. Christianity becomes a
checklist rather than a heart in love with our Creator. We limit salvation to a
set of rules rather than a relationship with the one who made them. We claim to
love God, yet that love doesn’t make any difference in how we live, how we
treat out spouse, how we spend our money, how we use our time. We use God for
our own purposes (usually as some form of a glorified Santa Clause), instead of
laying down our lives before Him to be used for His purposes.
Are we
fooling ourselves? Are we so busy doing “religious” things without taking the
time to stop and truly consider the call of Jesus even in our most menial
tasks. Nothing in our life is secular, everything is sacred. Everything. Every
bite, every word, every chore is something to be done by the power of the Holy
Spirit and for the glory of God.
I remind
you, as I am also reminding myself. Stop playing a game. Go big. Dare to step
out of your comfort zone today and follow Jesus into the unknown. That’s where
we experience his power. That’s where His grace meets our inability and transforms
us into agents of His salvation.
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