‘What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’ Micah 6:8 NIV

The prophet Micah asks: ‘What can we bring to the Lord? What kind of offerings should we give Him? …Should we offer Him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins?’ (Micah 6:6–7 NLT)

Do you feel like you can never be good enough to please God? Does religion look to you like a set of impossible, guilt-inducing demands designed to appease a distant deity who takes delight in making us squirm? Thank God for Micah, who comes along and dispels that notion by telling us, ‘He has showed you, O man, what is good.’ (Micah 6:8 RSV) Because you’ve been redeemed and filled with God’s Spirit, you can:

(1) Act justly. Just simply ‘do right’, even when nobody else is. Why? In order to maintain your confidence before God! (see 1 John 3:21–22) Nothing in your life is more important than that.

(2) Love mercy. Remember the old Nancy Sinatra hit song, ‘These boots were made for walkin’, and that’s just what they’ll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you’? Jesus went through life lifting people up, not walking all over them. And His Word says: ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:37 NIV)

(3) Walk humbly with your God. When God promotes you, your greatest challenge will be to make sure He gets all the glory. Every good thing you have today is a gift from Him; try to remember that! So the word for you today is: ‘Act justly… love mercy… walk humbly.’

SoulFood: Ezek 37:1–40:9, Matt 24:1–14, Ps 78:9–16, Pro 20:11–14

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