Day 218: For Me?

John 5:1-18; 1 Chronicles 18-19; Zechariah 7

The sick man had been lame and crippled, for 38 years. For almost 4 decades he had been waiting by this pool, hoping to be healed! He had depended on human acts to save him--he needed someone else to move him because he couldn't move himself. His whole life he had relied on human strength, even human compassion to fix him, but it never worked. He had been there all those years. Jesus comes along and with a few words, and the man is completely well. We can try and try and wait and wait and hope and hope that our problems and sins will be fixed. We can work as hard as we want to and believe that we can improve, but nothing or no one besides Jesus can really truly heal us from the condition we find ourselves in. It may seem crazy, but the power of God is the power to transform and bring life where their was death and health where there was sickness, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

David was probably pretty wealthy and could have gotten greedy. But he shows in these chapters that he still honored and loved The Lord. When he is congratulated for his battle successes with a bunch of treasure, he gives all the gifts to The Lord along with the rest of what he had collected from other battles. He gave back to God what was God's. It is so important that we would do the same with our finances. Tithing should be the minimum. What many people that I've talked and Austin and I have experience ourselves, is that when finances get tough, there is always someway that things are provided for. We have seen how God provides exactly what they need. Now, this may not be exactly 212 dollars sent in the mail for a $212 bill, but God does come through when we rely on him. Maybe not in the exact timing we expect, but he loves us and wants to care for us.

In Zechariah, the people question God as to whether they should continue the ritual that they have always done. God responds by asking "did you really do it for me?" The point God is making here is that rituals and traditions in the church don't matter if they aren't done with a pure heart to honor and praise The Lord. I think of church who have been doing the same thing in their church for the last 100 years and wonder how much meaning those things still hold to the people. What does God really want us to do? (The million dollar question!) He tells them in the next breath: "See that justice is done and be kind and merciful to one another! Don't mistreat widows or orphans or foreigners or anyone who is poor, and stop making plans to hurt each other." That's it. Be merciful, care for the needy, and don't hurt each other. That's what our life and worship should be filled with, not rituals that don't matter. God, help us to get that right.