Today we see that God's ways are not our ways and our ways are not God's ways. While God is giving Moses the commandments on the mountain the people of Israel fear for their well being and make other gods. This is all the more amazing because the Lord had appeared to the elders of Israel in glory shortly before. He had taken them personally out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, destroyed Egypt's army, and guided the people of Israel with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. This same God was providing the entire nation with food on a daily basis. But now they turn their back on what they have seen with their own eyes. They prefer their own solutions, their own guidance, to God's rule.
We are too often like this. We see what our Lord has provided and we choose to follow our own way. Not content with God's revelation in Scripture we seek our own philosophy. Not content with the way God has worked in history through his church we try to build a new and different church. Not content with the proclamation of Christ's atonement on our behalf and his satisfaction for our sins we try to invent a new Jesus, a Jesus according to our own character.
This ought not to be. While the Bible never gives us warrant to run our lives counter to society just for the sake of being different from society, the Bible does tell us that God's ways are not our ways, his thoughts are not our thoughts. We see remarkable contrasts in what Christians value in Scripture when compared to their larger culture. We see people who give of themselves and their resources in order to bring Christ's healing love to fruition in this world. We see people who are at the forefront of science, medicine, invention, and education. These are people who know the Lord has given them gifts to serve their neighbors. We see Christian people who do even menial tasks cheerfully, knowing that those very tasks are means of God ministering to the world. The Bible paints a different picture than the picture of society we would create for ourselves.
Lord, let us be conformed to your image. Create in us a desire to live according to your values. Use us as you nurture and care for this world.
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