Tag: kindness

Micah 6:1-8 Amplified Bible

God’s Indictment of His People

6 Hear now what the Lord is saying,
“Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
And let the hills [as witnesses] hear your voice.
² 
“Hear, O mountains, the indictment of the Lord,
And you enduring foundations of the earth,
For the Lord has a case (a legal complaint) against His people,
And He will dispute (challenge) Israel.
³ 
“O My people, what have I done to you [since you have turned away from Me]?
And how have I wearied you? Answer Me.
⁴ 
“For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
And ransomed you from the house of slavery,
And I sent before you Moses [to lead you], Aaron [the high priest], and Miriam [the prophetess].
⁵ 
“My people, remember now
What Balak king of Moab devised [with his evil plan against Israel]
And what Balaam the son of Beor answered him [turning the curse into blessing for Israel],
[Remember what the Lord did for you] from ^[a]Shittim to Gilgal,
So that you may know the righteous and saving acts [displaying the power] of the Lord.”

What God Requires of Man

⁶ 
With what shall I come before the Lord [to honor Him]
And bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,
With yearling calves?
⁷ 
Will the Lord be delighted with thousands of rams,
Or with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I present my firstborn for my acts of rebellion,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
⁸ 
He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
Except to be just, and to love [and to diligently practice] kindness (compassion),
And to walk humbly with your God [setting aside any overblown sense of importance or self-righteousness]?

The Word of God for the Children of God.

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

God’s Case Against His People

What God Is Looking For

6 ^1-2 Listen now, listen to God:

“Take your stand in court.
    If you have a complaint, tell the mountains;
    make your case to the hills.
And now, Mountains, hear God’s case;
    listen, Jury Earth—
For I am bringing charges against my people.
    I am building a case against Israel.

^3-5 “Dear people, how have I done you wrong?
    Have I burdened you, worn you out? Answer!
I delivered you from a bad life in Egypt;
    I paid a good price to get you out of slavery.
I sent Moses to lead you—
    and Aaron and Miriam to boot!
Remember what Balak king of Moab tried to pull,
    and how Balaam son of Beor turned the tables on him.
Remember all those stories about Shittim and Gilgal.
    Keep all God’s salvation stories fresh and present.”

An important part of many court decisions is known as “restitution.”

Restitution means that a guilty person’s sentence includes making amends for the wrong that was done. So that when someone is found guilty of theft, he is not only punished for his crime but is also ordered to repay what he stole.

Today’s Bible reading portrays the ultimate courtroom drama. God has a case against his people, and the entire creation is called in as the Lord’s witness. In the first five verses of Micah 6, God pours out his heart like a rejected lover.

“Hear, O mountains, the indictment of the Lord,
And you enduring foundations of the earth,

Shouting at the mountaintops unto the enduring foundations of the earth, What did God ever do to you, deserve the way he was treated by his unfaithful people?

The people stand silent before God, their Judge. Their guilt is obvious, and no defense argument can be offered. So verses 6-7 move right into the matter of restitution. But how can sinful people ever repay a holy God? Micah confirms that no sacrifice on our part can ever sufficiently provide restitution to God.

How fully wonderful that the good news of Jesus announces God’s provision of the sacrifice we could never make. In Paul’s words, Jesus is the one who “loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice unto God” (Ephesians 5:2).

Nothing we could offer would be enough to make restitution.

But the offering of Jesus, who laid down his life for us, is.

So, what is it that we are supposed to offer at least as a show of good faith?

Justice.

Kindness.

Mercy.

On the same measure as God as when God sent His only Son to us. (John 3:16)

Except, where is it?

God searches for it, searches everywhere, God never stops searching for it.

But, even at the minimal discernable, detectable levels, they are not found!

We know how God feels about this … we have the words of Micah 6:1 – 5.

But, what we do not have is what is man’s response to this grievous crime?

Sitting in our witness chair, being questioned, silence, We have no response.

We knew what was going on, we knew we were guilty, we have no legal defense to protect us, yet we would plead our innocence before God, righteous judge.

Just what were we thinking?

Were we thinking at all?

“And are we yet disproportionately alive in ourselves versus alive in God?”

Detectable Degrees: Justice, Kindness, and Humility?

Micah 6:6-8 The Message

^6-7 How can I stand up before God
    and show proper respect to the high God?
Should I bring an armload of offerings
    topped off with yearling calves?
Would God be impressed with thousands of rams,
    with buckets and barrels of olive oil?
Would he be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child,
    my precious baby, to cancel my sin?

* * *

⁸ But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
    what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
    be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
    take God seriously.

It is quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, do not take yourself too seriously, take God seriously!

So, God, through His words of truth, to the ancient Prophet Micah says;

It is quite simple …

Do not take ourselves too seriously. (How hard can this possibly be?)

What is that supposed to mean to me?

What is that supposed to mean to you, the reader of this devotional?

What is that supposed to mean to the church, to not take itself too seriously?

And if God’s word teaches us that “Truth be Told, It is really quite easy,” then what are we missing here … easy for God – but isn’t everything easy for God?”

When John Newton, the 18th-century hymn writer and pastor, preached on this verse, he entitled his sermon “No Access to God but by the Gospel of Christ.”

Why would he use a title that seems to lack any connection to the verse?!

Newton himself commented, “There is hardly any one passage in the Bible more generally misunderstood.”[1] 

1 The Works of the Rev. John Newton (1808), Vol. 2, p 543.

His sermon title, it seems, was prophetically aimed at correcting the common misunderstandings.

Reverend Newton’s title alerts us to the danger of reading the virtues described here, justice, kindness, humility, then attempting to live them out without the gospel, or proclaiming them in place of the gospel, as a means of access to God.

Neither of these does justice to what the prophet—and the Lord—intended.

The best way to understand Micah 6:8 is not to just give us, a list of things, that contribute to our justification, but as evidences of our justification.

When we view it this way, with the proper motivation and goals established, we can truly understand what the Lord was calling Israel, and is calling us, to do.

The Lord, through Micah, tells us first to “do justice.”

This means a commitment to act in accord with God’s will and purpose.

For example, in Deuteronomy,

Moses says that God “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:18).

We want to care about the things God cares about, which means taking such priorities seriously, seeking to never get tired to “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10).

Second, the Lord tells us to “love kindness.”

If doing justice is the action, then loving kindness is the heart attitude that fuels it. It’s deep warm-hearted compassion, ensuring that we pursue justice not as a big media circus performance of some duty but as a glad action of benevolence.

Third, we are to “walk humbly.”

In other words, we are to surrender our inflated self image, walk in submission to God’s will, to embracing our utter dependence on Him every step of the way.

Why does Micah end this verse with humility?

First, because humility is what is required to acknowledge that we do not perfectly obey the call to love kindness and do justice—and so we need the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness of the Lord and not just His commands.

Proverbs 15:33 The Message

³³ Fear-of-God is a school in skilled living—
    first you learn humility, then you experience glory.

Proverbs 18:12 The Message

¹² Pride first, then the crash,
    but humility is precursor to honor.

Proverbs 29:23 The Message

²³ Pride lands you flat on your face;
    humility prepares you for honors.

And second, because even as we do obey Him in the way Micah 6:8 calls us to, the fruitfulness of our labors is ultimately not up to us.

You and I cannot fix the world; we must instead entrust the solution to the world’s King and Judge.

Doing so both motivates and sustains us, with God’s help, to live out the gospel that has saved us, through expressions of justice, kindness, and humility, for the good of our neighbors, for the witness of the church, for the glory of Christ.

Across the centuries, Ancient words of Micah calls us today to reflect humbly on our need for the gospel, to look deep into your heart and ask the Spirit to grow it in Christlike kindness, then to look to your world and actively pursue what God reveals through the ministry of our Savior Jesus Christ to be fairness to be just.

Ephesians 4:1-3 The Message

To Be Mature

4 ^1-3 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

James 1:26-27 The Message

^26-27 Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

We are assured by the truth of God through Christ, revealed by Micah 6:8 that

It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
    be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
    take God seriously.

So, what do you believe?

Easy peasy, led, guided and directed by God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

Infinitely too complex, immeasurably too Complicated because of our agendas?

In the name of God, the Father and God, the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us Pray,

Psalm 65 The Message

65 ^1-2 Silence is praise to you,
    Zion-dwelling God,
And also obedience.
    You hear the prayer in it all.

^2-8 We all arrive at your doorstep sooner
    or later, loaded with guilt,
Our sins too much for us—
    but you get rid of them once and for all.
Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest
    at home in your place!
We expect our fill of good things
    in your house, your heavenly manse.
All your salvation wonders
    are on display in your trophy room.
Earth-Tamer, Ocean-Pourer,
    Mountain-Maker, Hill-Dresser,
Muzzler of sea storm and wave crash,
    of mobs in noisy riot—
Far and wide they’ll come to a stop,
    they’ll stare in awe, in wonder.
Dawn and dusk take turns
    calling, “Come and worship.”

^9-13 Oh, visit the earth,
    ask her to join the dance!
Deck her out in spring showers,
    fill the God-River with living water.
Paint the wheat fields golden.
    Creation was made for this!
Drench the plowed fields,
    soak the dirt clods
With rainfall as harrow and rake
    bring her to blossom and fruit.
Snow-crown the peaks with splendor,
    scatter rose petals down your paths,
All through the wild meadows, rose petals.
    Set the hills to dancing,
Dress the canyon walls with live sheep,
    a drape of flax across the valleys.
Let them shout, and shout, and shout!
    Oh, oh, let them sing!

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

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