What God requires - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Micah 6:8,

"He has shown you, O mortal, 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."

Here is the simple directive of God. Here is what he requires. There is nothing confusing about it, it does not require a theologian to tell us what it means. To us mortals, through Micah, God has given us this direction. It is not just for Israelites however. It is for all us mortals. Justice, mercy and humility.

While a word study could be done on these three, helping us to understand what exactly this means, I suspect most of us have a good idea. There is something else we already know. We don't pass muster. We all have a sinful nature and that nature precludes our ability to live these out. The last one seems particularly difficult. At the very time you feel you have arrived at a level of humility, you have lost it.

What do we do? Paul wrote Romans 7 to make the very point that we can never please God with the things we think, do and say. God's expectations become his indictment of us. Where does this lead us? Directly to the lap of his mercy. Knowing our Creator, our Judge, requires what we have no hope in keeping should drive us to the only hope we have: God's mercy as expressed in Jesus Christ.

We will all stand before God's judgment seat to give an account of ourselves and those who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith will have him at their side. Jesus paid the price for our sins and when we place our faith and trust in him, his payment gets credited to our account with God the Father. Those who have not embraced Jesus Christ in faith will have to face God's judgment all alone. All who do so will be cast into a fiery lake of burning sulfur, Revelation 21:8.

We all have a choice to make. What is yours?

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com