Micah 6:8

Now and then in His Word, God gives us short and simple directives for how He wants us to live. One of my favorites, and perhaps the hardest to actually follow, is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) When life gets confusing or too complicated, I recall Jesus’ desire for us to “Love God; love others” since that sums up the entire law.

Another verse that I really like is Micah 6:8. “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” I’ve been mulling over the three “requirements” of this verse for the past few days.

God asks His people to be just; to do whatever is good and right and true in all circumstances and to all people. We’re to love all people regardless of their circumstances or social position; we’re to treat others fairly. The only way we can really act justly is by asking God’s Holy Spirit for guidance and assistance. The Spirit helps us to know what is right and then by His power working in us, enables us to do it.

God asks us to love mercy: to extend forgiveness quickly to those in need. To forget wrongs committed against us without holding a grudge. To trust in God’s perfect judgment so much that we can love others even if “justice” has not (yet) been served. And to remember that we ourselves are guilty of many sins and fall under the Lord’s judgment also. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” (2 Cor. 5:10) Sometimes it’s easy to judge others or withhold mercy without realizing that when we treat others this way, we are inviting our Lord to deal with us just as harshly. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matt. 7:1)

God asks us to be humble, which basically means we’re to acknowledge that He alone is the source of everything true and good and right. It is not anything that I do or am. Perhaps walking humbly is the most difficult of any command. To be humble, I have to constantly remind myself that all good comes from God and God alone. It means acknowledging that I do not have the answers, that my wisdom is limited, and that any good thing I do is actually a result of the Spirit of God manifesting itself in my life. The hardest thing about humility is the constant – constant – death to self. As soon as I start thinking I’ve done something good, I have to immediately turn that over to God and acknowledge that it is from Him.

Of course, God does not require these things for salvation. All He requires for salvation is for us to believe that His Son paid our debt of sin for us when He died on the cross. Once we have believed, He gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell within us to direct us in all goodness and truth. It is really only through the power of this Holy Spirit that any of these requirements in Micah can even remotely be fulfilled.