What Does God Require of You?

Micah asked this very question in his book in chapter 6:8, 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 humblywith your God.  When I see a direct question from someone who knows what God wants, I can assure that I am paying attention.  Notice what he says…

1. Act Justly.  To be just, one has to discern or know what is fair vs. unfair, what is good vs. bad, what is right vs. wrong.  You hear often from the world that “Christians” act one way when they are at church yet another way when they walk in the world.  “You guys are two faced…hypocrites.”  Ouch!  This really hurts but too often it is true.  God wants us to be people of integrity.  To me the word integrity means “whole” as an integer is a whole number.  We should have no “fractions” in our lives violating the testimony of Christ.  One other thought about this.  Act justly does not mean acting self-righteously.  Jesus absolutely abhorred the self-righteousness of the Pharisees.  Walking around all show, puffed up acting the part, acting the part but absolutely empty on the inside.  “Act justly.”
2. Love Mercy.  When Christians begin acting merciful is when the church begins impacting our communities.  Giving others what they don’t deserve is real and palpable when one rubs up against the world.  Genuine mercy is full of light vs. darkness of the world.  Light sitting next to darkness always wins!  Mercy and the word compassion are often used interchangeably with different versions of the Bible.  For example, Lamentations 3:23 in the ESV states “²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;  his mercies never come to an end; ²³ they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  The NIV states the same verse this way, “his compassions never fail.”  Compassion is always focused on what best for or what is needed by another person.  Christian, “love mercy.”
3. Walk humbly.  It absolutely amazing that our Lord, God Himself, walked humbly. He is God yet he walked humbly obeying His heavenly father.  In John 13, when he recognized that all authority had been given to Him, what did He do?  He got up and took off His outer garment and got bucket of water and towel and washed the disciple’s feet.  This chore was usually performed by the lowest servant.  Jesus humbled Himself.  Phil. 2:6-9 stated ⁶ Jesus, being in very natureGod, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness.  ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!  Walk as Jesus walked…”walk humbly.”

Now you know what is required of you.  Let’s all act justly, love mercy and walk humbly before our Lord and the world.