What Does God Want From Us?

In the Bible, the prophet Micah said:

What God wants from his people

6 ‘I come to meet with the Lord,’ you say.

6:6Micah speaks as one man, on behalf of Israel's people. They want to give gifts to God. They will give anything that God wants. They will try to pay for what they have done wrong. Some people wanted to kill and burn a child as a way to give him to God. We know that God certainly does not want this.

‘I must know what to bring when I come.

I bend down to worship him.

I must know what to offer when I bend down.

He is God and he is greater than everything.

Perhaps he would like it if I burn young cows one year old for him.

7 He might be happy with thousands of male sheep,

or ten thousand rivers of olive oil.

I have not obeyed God.

I might even kill and burn my oldest son, because of that.

I have done wrong things and I must pay God for that.

Perhaps, if I give my own child to him, that will be enough to pay.’

8 But God has told us what is good. This is what the Lord wants from us:

6:8Micah replies on God's behalf. God wanted the people to obey him. He did not really want other gifts from them.

‘You must be fair to other people,’ God says.

‘You must want to be kind.

6:8Micah uses a special word for ‘kind’. It means to be a friend. And not to stop, whatever happens.

And you must be careful to do what I show you.’

Micah 6:6-8 EasyEnglish Bible (EASY)

In the Bible, the apostle John wrote:

God forgives our sins because of Jesus' death

1 I am writing this letter to you, my friends who are like my little children. I am writing to you because I do not want you to do wrong things. But if anyone among you does something wrong, there is someone who will speak to God on our behalf. That person is Jesus Christ, who always does only what is right. He will ask our Father God to forgive you. 2 Jesus died as a sacrifice to take the punishment for our sin. Then God could forgive us. Jesus did that not only for us. He did it for all people in the world, so that God could forgive them for their sins.

1 John 2:1-2 EasyEnglish Bible (EASY)

To find out more about how to please God, click: What is a Christian?