What is Required?

The question: What should I bring before the LORD? When I come to bow before God on high? Should I come before him with burnt offerings, with year-old calves? Would the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand streams of oil? Should I give my firstborn for my transgression, the offspring of my body for my own sin?

The answer: Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the LORD requires of you:

to act justly,

to love faithfulness,

and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:6-8 (CSB)

Jesus has spent the better part of his ministry teaching, encouraging, rebuking, and loving his disciples so they will understand what it is to live with the kingdom of heaven in mind. Jesus teaches his disciples truth and how it will impact people through radical love. Now as he is approaching the final days of his earthly ministry, Matthew records several parables to help them understand what it means to “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matt 25:34)

Jesus tells them “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; I was a stranger and you didn’t take me in; I was naked and you didn’t clothe me; sick and in prison and you didn’t take care of me.” Their response has probably been mirrored through the generations since Jesus spoke those words, “Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help you?

Jesus’ response to his disciples seems very appropriate during Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. “Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” God used this Baptist pastor to awaken a nation to confront the injustices of the day. Dr. King said that “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

God’s standard “To act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God” sets a high bar of obedience, yet Jesus puts flesh on those verses. Feed the hungry as if He were sitting at the table. Give someone a cool drink on a hot day. Find some clothes to meet the needs of a homeless person. James came to grip with this teaching and would later write, “If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15)

God by His very nature deserves our very best. Yet He doesn’t ask for elaborate, ornate, or spectacular acts of worship. Simple acts of doing justly, loving faithfully, and walking humbly are His response to “What should I bring?” Jesus models these teachings in Matthew 24 and 25 and a few days after teaching, He places His life upon a cross for us. The extreme act of love brings redemption and salvation to those without hope. Our broken world creates inequality, unfairness, and often prejudice because of sin. God recognized the injustices that would come and created laws and regulations to safeguard the disadvantaged, the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the enslaved. He knows that governments, people of influence, money, and resources will often be used to further the sufferings or at best not help. The late W.A. Criswell wrote “those who believe themselves to be God’s people and who rely on the sacrifice for sin which God has provided have sometimes assumed that because their sins are dealt with, it does not matter how they live. The Bible emphasizes that those who would live in fellowship with a holy God as His people must live in a way which reflects the holiness of God.”

Micah’s words are simple and straightforward but generations have struggled to live out their intent. Dr. King understood all too well the challenges yet wrote “If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend’s own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Your life as a Christian should make non-believers question their disbelief in God.” How or what can you do today to make a non-believer question their disbelief in God?  Our crazy, mixed-up world needs us to “act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with God.”

Therefore, fear the LORD and worship him in sincerity and truth…. But if it doesn’t please you to worship the LORD, choose for yourselves today: Which will you worship… As for me and my family, we will worship the LORD. – Joshua 24:14-15

God is great!

Jan 16, 2023