God Pause for Tuesday, 12/2/2014
/Luther Seminary God Pause
Tuesday, 12/2/2014 Reading: Micah 4:1-5
Do you have a truth-teller in your life? Someone who you know has your back but also isn't afraid to say that you're headed in the wrong direction? Truth-tellers can be hard to listen to, but hopefully they can be trusted--because they deliver that truth in love.
Micah was such a truth-teller. Israel was facing certain defeat at the hands of the mighty Assyrian army. Their only chance for survival was to put their trust in God. Yet their worship had become hollow, their sense of justice distorted. Micah's words both call the people to account for their failings, and cast a vision for what life could be like if they change their ways.
Advent can be a truth-telling time--a time of reflection and repentance, a chance to focus on how your priorities and values align with those of Jesus. What might Micah's call to "return to God" say to you this season?
Help me take a good look at myself, Lord, and see those places that reflect your will--and those that draw me away from you. Amen. >
Shelley Cunningham Pastor, Zumbro Lutheran Church Rochester, Minn. Master of Divinity, 1998
Micah 4:1-5 (NRSV)
1 In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, 2 and many nations shall come and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 3 He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; 4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. 5 For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.
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