Unprepared to Meet the Real God

There is a vague childhood memory floating around in my head of a sign along the highway near my home outside Charlotte, NC that ominously declared: "Prepare To Meet Thy God."  It could bring on a vague sense of unease and judgement just riding past it.  I could picture an invisible god just behind it, angrily looking down his long nose with a frown and a face that said, "Now you are REALLY in trouble."  I would pedal on as hard as I could to get past it without getting struck by a lightening bolt.

Looking back, I realize that I wasn't sure what I was in trouble for with this god, but I clearly got the message that between who he was and who I was, there was nothing but disappointment and punishment.  I couldn't tell you why I was condemned, but I was certain somehow that I was, even if it seemed a bit unfair.

That text showed up again - "Prepare To Meet Your God, O Israel!" Amos 4:12 - this morning in my Bible reading.  It comes at the end of five specific statements saying "I did XYZ for you, yet you did not return to me."  Even early in the morning, it sounded like a list of charges being read in court.  Duck for cover!  Here come 'da judge!

What pulled me completely out of my chair though was the realization that Israel would in fact meet their God, face-to-face about 750 years after these words were spoken.  That is what the birth and life of Jesus were all about.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  For a few decades, you could sit down and chat with God at whatever the equivalent of a 1st century coffee shop would have been.  It is mind-blowing to imagine Nathaniel picking up his latte, finding his friend Philip who introduces him to Jesus saying, "Nathaniel, meet your God.  He's using the name Jesus."  That is essentially what is happening in John 1:43-51!

Why is it that the sign I saw and inspired so much dread in me as a kid in no way prepared me to meet the actual God that it was referring to?  Dread, condemnation, fear, shame, failure I understood deep in my youthful psyche.  Polite distance was my strategy for dealing with that god.  The moment arrived though, that I was totally caught off guard by and unprepared for a God Who would lay aside His glory, take on the identical form of my own brokenness and then with unilateral love and nothing but me to gain, give His life in exchange for mine.  I couldn't have guessed in my wildest dreams that there was a God like that to prepare to meet!  But He knew that.  That's why He did it all for me.

Sadly, I must admit that for years I continued to read the Old Testament just like I did that sign: assuming I was the one in trouble with God.  Imagine, since that time I had come to a personal faith in Christ, been educated in evangelical seminaries, and served as a pastor for decades.  Yet, it was this morning that I first read this passage through "gospel eyes."  Jesus stepped up and took the punishment implicit in those previous five statements in the court case played out in Amos.  Now, Jesus has faced the judgement and wrath that my failure have earned, and I am free to live in the love and righteousness that are His to give.

That's the Gospel that is announced to every one of us.  This is what Jesus gave His life to offer to you and to me.  I can hardly wait to get out of bed in the morning and see what new depth of the Gospel the Holy Spirit will open my eyes to.  His love is indeed new every morning.  (Lamentations 3:22-23)