‘What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’ Micah 6:8 NIV
The prophet Micah asks: ‘What can we bring to the Lord? What kind of offerings should we give Him? …Should we offer Him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins?’ (Micah 6:6–7 NLT)
Repentance is not just saying ‘sorry’ because you think you can never be good enough to please God. Thank God for Micah, who comes along and stamps out the idea that God is a distant deity who takes delight in making us squirm by telling us, ‘He has showed you, O man, what is good.’ (Micah 6:8 RSV) Because you’ve been redeemed and filled with God’s Spirit today you can decide to:
(1) Act justly. Just simply ‘do right’, even when nobody else is. Why? In order to maintain your confidence before God! (see 1 John 3:21–22) Nothing in your life is more important than that.
(2) Love mercy. We are undeserving recipients of God’s mercy. Just as Jesus went through life lifting people up, not walking all over them, we should show the same mercy and compassion for other people. In fact we are commanded ‘…be kind and merciful, and forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ.’ (Ephesians 4:32 CEV)
(3) Walk humbly with your God. When God promotes you, your greatest challenge will be to make sure He gets all the glory. Every good thing you have today is a gift from Him; try to remember that! So the word for you this Repentance Day is: ‘Act justly… love mercy… walk humbly.’
SoulFood: Ezek 5–9, Matt 21:12–17, Ps 119:169–176, Pro 19:9–10
The Word for Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright ©