God’s Requirement (Daily Devotional)

Shalom and welcome to Living Supernaturally. Thank you for joining with us, today we are at our last episode of what we’ve been looking through this entire week, of truth of God’s word for us and specially for the youth. Through the last couple of days, we’ve had Jeremy with us, sharing his thoughts about his season of life and we’ve looked together at God’s word for guidance and wisdom.

Jeremy: when I look at my friends and see how they relate to what is spiritual, it seems that everything’s only about activities or what they are doing and now religion is reduced to holding some beliefs or following rules and rituals or even chanting prayers. I wonder if that is required of us too?

Jean: so that is a wonderful observation, Jeremy, and a lot of us sometimes do fall into that trap of doing things/ works/ activities in place of really having a true relationship with God. Sometimes we define this relationship with God in terms of the things that we do, in terms of the activities that we may be engaged in. I would like to read from scripture, from Micah chapter 6 and verse 8, it reads, ‘He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?’ This was something that even an Old Testament prophet like Micah observed. Micah was a prophet in Judah, during the time the Israelites were held captive by the Assyrians. At this time, the King of Judah tried very hard to bring the people back to God but was mostly superficial. The kingdom sins were hidden behind these religious rituals, so everything seemed to look wonderful on the outside, but Micah definitely knew the hearts of the people were far away from God. So, what did he see? He saw past their appearance of these external things of the law and was addressing the root of their sins, which was their heart. Micah now addresses and requires something of them and that is how he brings about this verse. We can take this application for ourselves today and in this verse that we read, the Lord requires three things, to walk humbly with God; Now this becomes the basis for the other two requirements, which is to love mercy and to do justice. So, walking humbly with God is a description of the hearts attitude towards God. Because of what God has done, we fully ensure, and we invest in serving the world and we need to walk humbly before God, cultivating our walk with God provides the power to do things with power and passion. The other two that he talks about is to do justly- justice isn’t about punishment but about fairness. God deals with each one of us impartially. We are called to impartially work with people, impartially look at people who may have disadvantages and work alongside with them, build them up and to do things impartially. Lastly it says to love mercy; God desires for us to love mercy and the word that is translated here is kindness, that is to love kindness. God wants us to love mercy because that is the only way that we become people who respond with grace and with goodness. So, the message that Micah had is still very applicable, it is still pertinent today to us, that the religious rites or external compliances to rules is not as valuable in God’s eyes as a humble heart, as a heart that is sold out for Him.

Let’s pray together, Heavenly Father, we pray, and we thank you, that you have given us so many things to do for your kingdom. But we ask that we would never do anything apart from you, that our sole responsibility and desire would be to love you, to do all things for others and for your kingdom, that comes from a right relationship with you, thank you because you love our hearts and you wants to seek the best of our hearts, may we give you the best out of our relationship with you, in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

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