The Most Important Thing

If people want to please God, they must understand what is important to Him. The root of it all can be found in Hebrews: “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” That is a simple statement with profound implications. The most basic question is faith in what. Again, the Hebrew writer explains: “The one who approaches God must believe that he exists and is a rewarder of those who seek him.” No surprise there. Jesus said those who seek will find. James said those who seek wisdom need only to ask. The Bible is the source of wisdom. Ignorance of what is important to God can only be the result of failure to seek to know.

It is depressing to read the current statistics regarding Bible reading among people who profess to be Christians. Although the Christian pollster George Barna has found a resurgence in weekly Bible reading, the American Bible Society reports that less than ten percent of people they polled read the Bible daily. I would hazard a guess that the weekly readers are largely Sunday readers, and I wager they read while in church. As if the poor reading numbers weren’t bad enough, Barna found that only one in three Bible readers affirm the Bible’s teachings as authoritative. Ouch!

A Pew Research study found that 54% of Americans say they believe in the God of the Bible. That is curious since Barna reveals that so few of them read their Bibles regularly. How can they believe in a God they hardly know? It is no wonder that our society is so rapidly abandoning the founding principles that have made America what she is. Our founding documents assert that proper government must be centered on “natural law,” which to them meant things that were ordained by their Creator. The founders believed that our rights are “unalienable” precisely because they are mandated by God not man.

It is easy to understand why our increasingly secular society is willing to leave behind godly principles. What is most disturbing is how many self-described Christians behave similarly. I believe the pollsters have uncovered the reason for that: even people who read the Bible are not concerned with aligning their behavior with the requirements God ordained in the Scripture. Why would they when even their preachers discount the Bible’s authority? In “Wise up, America,” I paraphrased Jeremiah: “I am against the [preachers], declares the Lord…. They are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own imagination not from the mouth of the Lord.”

The practices and principles America has begun to abandon form a list of the things God considers to be important. Allegiance to God is important; family is important; marriage (one man, one woman) is important; sexual purity is important; civil order is important; obedience is important. The Ten Commandments sum up what God requires: the first four describe a proper relationship with God; the last six the relationship between people. Jesus summed them even further when He said, “Love God; love your neighbor.” He said the entire Old Testament law rested on those two ideas, as do the original documents that defended America’s founding. That also explains why so many American institutions once proudly posted the Ten Commandments for all to read.

The Ten Commandments were explicit. But there is more to what God considers important if you read through the Bible carefully, with an eye for the subtleties. In chapters two and three of Genesis, you can see the importance of marriage, family, and obedience. Had Adam and Eve not strayed, they would have grown from one couple to a family that ruled the earth under God’s hand. In Genesis 9, the record of the flood, and again in chapters 18-19, with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we see how important sexual purity was. Throughout the books of Israel’s history, we see God demanding civil order and obedience to His commands.

If you read between the lines, you can see how important children are to God. Read about Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Manoah and Samson, Hannah and Samuel, Elizabeth and Zechariah, and of course, Mary and Jesus. In each case, God miraculously provided a child who was destined to accomplish His purposes. Even David’s adulterous relationship with Bathsheba brought forth a child who would become one of God’s chosen kings of Israel. Neither David nor Solomon were perfect – far from it. Yet God used them to accomplish His plan.

This may be a stretch, but I can see the importance of civil order in God’s promise to David that one of his descendants would sit on the throne of His kingdom forever. King Jesus, born in the line of David, now rules God’s kingdom on earth. Christ’s body, the church, when it is faithful, spreads Christ’s kingly rule, transferring people from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Christians like our founding fathers tried to apply God’s principles of civil order through a constitutional government. I would like to think that America’s prosperity through 250 years is evidence of God’s blessing for their efforts.

It is not hard to figure out what is important to God. We may occasionally hear the still, small voice or the whisper beneath the whirlwind. We can certainly sense the prompting of the Holy Spirit if we pay attention to His voice. Without doubt, conscientious, regular reading of the Word of God aided by the Spirit of promise will make God known to us. Jesus revealed what is most important when He prayed to His Father: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” The only question is whether it is important to you to learn what is important to God.

Related Posts: Through the Bible in Seven Minutes; Lessons From History