What is Good

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

It all comes down to this. The Bible contains a lot of words, but all of them point to this. What is good? What is sin? They are answered in this judgment spoken to Israel. What is sin is to not do justice, to not love kindness, and to not walk with God. It's not just to do the opposite, but sin is also just to ignore them. If we are unconcerned with the world around us, keeping our heads down and looking only to ourselves, we are not doing justice. We are not loving kindness. And we are certainly not walking with our God, who rages at the weak exploited by the powerful, the poor who live in the chains of what they don't have, the broken shredded by the darkness that has infiltrated our world.

God must judge us because we have all failed in this. Sometimes I don't even know what justice or kindness is, so extensive is the warping of my heart. Darkness lives in me. It play tricks on my eyes so that when the powerful exploits the weak, I try to rationalize why they might have had that right. Or when I see a homeless person, I try to say maybe they deserve where they are, or perhaps even choose it. When I see a broken person, I keep my head down and say to myself that's too personal; it's not my place to try to help. Oh I deserve judgment. Because for every time I do justice and love kindness and choose God's way, there are a thousand examples of when I do not.

And yet sometimes my heart rages with God's at the injustice that is done on the earth. Oh the beauty of this simple judgment. It is what we all want, and yet what none of us can ever reach. It is so simple, and yet it is impossible for a single one of us. With one statement, God says to us that what he asks is not hard or excessive. It's what we yearn for! And yet we know that it is impossible, and so we talk ourselves into thinking if we give enough, or do enough -- if we give enough sacrifices, it will exonerate us.

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn form my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

No. Because what God wants is goodness.

Come Lord Jesus!

How my heart weeps for Christ's return! Oh that you would rend the mountains and come down! Restore justice! Destroy darkness! My soul cries out for Him to destroy this even in me. All praise be to the Lord our God, who sees the darkness in us and judges it with destruction, and yet loved us enough to die that He might raise us up out of it. How good is our King, and how righteous are His ways.