What Does God Require?

Micah 6v6-8

6Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

7Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

The Lord does not require religious sacrifice or activity from us His people.

Have we become a very poor imitation of what He requires?

This passage in Micah couldn't be any clearer.

There are no shades of grey.

He tells us what is good and what He requires:

1. To do justly.

Quite simply to do what is right irrespective of loss of face, reputation or position. To stand for truth and do the right thing even if it costs us. Jesus just didn't speak truth He lived out truth by acting righteously.

That's the high calling He is calling us to walk in and live out by the power of His Spirit in these last days.

To love the fatherless and the widow and to protect, support and love the most vulnerable, the defenceless and innocent.

Quite simply to love what is right and do what is right.

2. To love mercy.

Not just to love mercy that we receive from the Lord in our own lives but also to love it and to live in an attitude of being merciful to others.

Mercy is the very character of Christ. He is mercy not just merciful. Not only did He do justly but everything he did was motivated by love and mercy.

I heard a preacher say many years ago that grace is giving us what we don't deserve but mercy is not giving us what we do deserve.

Psalm 130v3&4

3If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

4But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

3. To walk humbly with your God

Where is the humility in us God's people?

Are we willing to humble ourselves before God first and cry out to Him confessing how far short we fall from the standards He sets in His Word?

Are we humble enough to admit that we can't do it and need power from on high to fulfil the Great Commission and reach this generation?

Are we humble enough to admit that what we call church is a poor imitation of what we read in God's Word and what He has called us to be in these last days and in realising that, we stop playing church and religious games and be honest enough to cry out and say Lord deliver us from our self righteousness, self will, stubbornness, self ambition and self pleasing, deliver us from deception and pride and come and change, revive and fill us and make us to be the endtime church that you want us to be.

If we walk humbly with God then we will be humble to people.

The lack of humility towards the Lord then manifests itself in a lack of humility between the body of Christ and towards the unsaved.

Pride, stubbornness and a refusal to admit we are wrong characterise our relationships within the body of Christ, leading to denominational divisions and disunity, competition and control in local churches, hurt and divisions within families and the misrepresentation of Christ to a lost and dying world, who are put off by our religiousity, hypocrisy and holier than thou attitudes.

God is clear about what he does and doesn't require.

Are we willing to hear and respond though?