What to Give the God Who has Everything

Tuesday Re-mix –

With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.   Micah 6:6-8

Father’s Day is nigh upon us…just a little less than two weeks away.  It is not too early to start thinking about what (for most of us) is the most difficult gift of the whole year to find.  What in the world will you give him for Father’s Day?  He is so very difficult to buy for!  Whenever he needs something, he just goes and gets it…what could I possibly get him that he doesn’t already have?  A tie?  Did I give him that last year?  Did I really give him a tie last year!?  How cliche is that!?  I am so embarrassed.

This passage out of Micah got me thinking about God and what He really wants from His church (from His bride) and what we could possibly give Him, and I wondered…What do you give the God Who has everything?

Some would answer we should give Him our very best gathered worship…excellence in music, in preaching, in communion, in corporate prayer…that we should give Him a truly amazing gathered worship expression week after week.  They might cite Psalm 22:3 (our God inhabits praise).

Others would answer the church should give Him our broken Spirits and contrite hearts…that what He really wants from us is moldable hearts.  They would cite Psalm 51.

Still others would argue that what the church should give God is everything.  After all, it all belongs to Him anyway!  They would argue that we should give Him our very lives and all they contain…that we should present to Him “our bodies as living sacrifices”.  They would cite Romans 12:1-2.

None of those would be wrong.  That’s the nice thing about serving this God…it’s not really the gift that counts, it is the heart behind the gift.  Cain and Able taught us that.

But Micah captures the very essence of what it is God really desires from His people.  Micah, it seems to me, has the answer for what to give the God Who has everything.  What God really wants from His church is simply that we do justice in the world, that we love and show kindness or mercy just like Jesus did, and that we walk humbly with God.  Somewhere in there is a pretty good strategic plan for your church, wouldn’t you say?  What would it look like in your church?  How can your local body of believers do better to give this great gift to God?  Are you up for it?

Or, you could just give Him another tie.  Your choice.

© Blake Coffee

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