micah 6:8

What Does God Require of You?

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“No. He has told you, mortals, what is good in His sight.
    What else does the Eternal ask of you
But to live justly and to love kindness
    and to walk with your True God in all humility?” (Micah 6:8, The Voice).

A lot of people spend lots of time wondering what God wants from them. They pray and fast and read the Bible in search of God’s will for their lives.

I think a good place to start is this verse in Micah. What does God require of you? John Thomas, quest speaker at Kairos, mentioned three things based on this passage.

  1. Live justly toward the poor and needy. That includes widows, orphans, refugees, outcast, and strangers. Note: it does not say to see whether they measure up to certain qualifications and prove deserving of our aid. It says to live out justice and kindness toward them.
  2. Love mercy by showing God’s ultimate example of mercy in Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice. That means evangelism. That means sharing your faith and living out what you believe.
  3. Walk humbly with your God, following in His steps and always ready to listen to what He says to you.  Never get too busy doing that you neglect being with God and learning to tune your life to His voice.

I think I was more convicted by this than I’ve been by anything in a while. If I live in the middle of affluence and plenty and see the need around me while doing nothing about it, I’m in direct disobedience to what God requires of me.

I also can’t help but think that if we start turning away refugees, will we look back and see that we turned away Jesus in disguise because He looked too much like an Islamic terrorist? Will we renege on our duty to care for the least of these because of fear?

Let God’s love be stronger than any fear as we learn how to live out a little more each day what God requires of us.

 

Something “Borrowed”

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Like the title says, I am “borrowing” this one from tonight’s Kairos, featuring guest speaker Thom Wolf. He spoke about how God has provided the answer to how we are to live in the 21st century. The syllabus for life is found in Micah 6:8: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

The three parts are justice, mercy, and faithfulness (see Matthew 23:23-24).

We must seek justice. Justice means that where you live never determines whether you should live or not. Justice means that no child should ever go hungry or die of preventible diseases or be sold into slavery or sex trafficking. Justice means that Jesus has come not to turn the world upside-down, but to turn an upside-down world the rightside up again.

We seek mercy. Not just to those who deserve it, for by its very definition mercy is always for those who don’t deserve it. By the love of Christ, we love our enemies into friends and then into brothers and sisters in Christ. We turn the other cheek and lay down our rights, looking to God to defend us. When someone close to us falls, we don’t extend a pointing finger, but a helping hand.

We seek faithfulness. I love the illustration of unfaithfulness as a step that looks outwardly sound, but is eaten away and has no real substance. You can’t depend on it or put any weight on it. Faithfulness means we don’t talk humbly before our God, we walk humbly. We live out what we profess and our actions and attitudes line up with our confessions.

If we live these things, we won’t ever have to con anyone into the Kingdom of God. We won’t have to ever trick someone into praying a prayer or manipulate anyone into a decision. If we do justly and lover mercy and walk humbly before God, we will show Jesus to the people around us and they will want to know Him.

I for one have been challenged to broaden my thinking and seek God’s heart for the world. If God has a special place in His heart for the poor and needy, outcast and forsaken, then why don’t I?