Divine Requirements: Justice, Mercy & Humility

August 2, 2014

“And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

The great prophet Micah asked a very important question, in effect:  what are the divine requirements of God? What does God expect, require, demand, and command from me?  Micah gives us three answers to that question.

His first answer is that we should do justly.  In other words, we should be a conduit of justice. We should stand up against injustice anytime and anywhere we see injustice.  Since we live in a world that is filled with injustice this could be very dangerous.  Jesus Christ did this perfectly and it got Him crucified.

Micah’s second answer is that we should love mercy.  Mercy is unconditional love.  This is the chief characteristic of the love of God.  David believed that the mercy and the unconditional love of God would follow or pursue him all the days of his life.

Micah’s final answer to his profound question is that we are to walk humbly with our God. Humility has consistently been a characteristic of the great old souls we have known in this life.  C.S. Lewis wrote that pride is the mother of all sins and we read in the Proverbs that God hates pride.  We can see why God would hate pride because He hates sin.

Are you willing to be the person Micah profiled?  There is a sense in which we cannot become that just, merciful and humble person through our own efforts.  But these three answers give us a profile of the person God wants us to be.

Are you willing to let God give you the grace to cultivate the divine requirements of justice, mercy and humility to be that person?

Dick Woodward, 20 March 2011

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Keys to Oneness

November 1, 2013

“… fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love… being of one accord of one mind.  In lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.  Let each of you look out… for the interests of others.” (Philippians 2: 2-4)

As Paul writes to his favorite church he is burdened that they experience oneness.  He wants them to be “like minded…of one accord” and “of one mind.”  To that end he gives them two keys to oneness.

One key is humility, what Paul calls “lowliness of mind.”  He instructs and challenges the Philippians to esteem others better than themselves.  C. S. Lewis told us that pride is the mother of all sins.  As a pastor I learned that when there is a dispute among two disciples you will often find somebody’s pride at the bottom of it.  Humility is an antidote that resolves disputes and restores oneness.

The other critical key is love.  When Paul writes of “the same love,” I believe he means the love of Christ in us. At least one application of that love is when we “look out for the interests of others.”  We might call this love “other centeredness.” We must realize and remember that this love is the fruit and evidence of the Holy Spirit living in us.  It is not natural.  It is supernatural.  We can’t do it.  Only He can.

So, Paul’s keys for being like minded are humility and love.  By application you will find his keys bringing oneness to your marriage, family, church, ministry and any relationship.

Our greatest challenges are relationships.  I challenge you to insert these keys into your most challenging relationships and watch God bring oneness.

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A Word for Leaders

August 16, 2013

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.”   (1 Peter 5:6)

Humility is a standard Peter sets for leaders.  He writes that leaders should lead as examples and not as lords over the flock they shepherd.  Humility is a challenging concept.  If we think we are humble we are probably not humble.  You probably heard of the church that gave its pastor a medal for humility but had to take it back because he wore it every Sunday.

In Scotland a young seminary graduate was to give the sermon as a candidate for a church that had an elderly pastor about to retire.  The pulpit was one of those old elevated ones that you had to climb many steps in order to preach.  With a pride that bordered on arrogance the young man climbed up to preach.  He had a disaster of a sermon.  When he came down in tears the old retiring pastor said to him, “Lad if you had gone up the way you came down you would have come down the way you went up!”

The verse quoted describes a covenant with God’s part and our part.  Our part is to humble ourselves.  It is God’s part to exalt us.  C. S. Lewis wrote that pride is the mother of all sins.  “To live above with the saints we have loved Oh that will be glory.  But to live below with those we know that’s another story.”  As a veteran pastor I can tell you that when there is a sharp dispute among two disciples a pastor will often find somebody’s pride at the bottom of the dispute.

Humble yourself.  That’s your business.  Exalting you is God’s business.

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Confirmation

June 8, 2013

“A person’s steps are confirmed by the Lord.”  (Psalm 37:23 Berkeley)

THE NINTH STEP:  Look for confirmation as you seek God’s will.

At times on our journeys of faith when we come to a fork in the road there is no verse of Scripture that tells us to go to the right or to the left and we have no prompting or leading of the Spirit.  We do our best to make the proper choice, while acknowledging the hard reality that we simply do not know which direction is the will of the Lord.  Having done everything we can to discern the will of God, we journey down one side or the other of that road.

The verse quoted above means we should sometimes move forward into what we perceive to be the will of God, praying and looking for a confirmation.  That confirmation may be positive or negative.  If everything works out and the direction we have chosen obviously has God’s stamp of approval on it, we can say God has given us a confirmation of His will.  We have the conviction of God saying to us, “This is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)  We see evidence of the reality Jesus described, that when He calls His sheep to follow Him, He goes before them. (John 10:1-4)  After we commit to a direction, we see evidence that the Living Christ has gone before us and prepared the way for us.

Sometimes, the confirmation is negative and the results are the opposite of those just described.  When that happens, we should be humble enough to go back to that fork in the road and choose the other direction.  We see an example of this in Acts chapter 16 when Paul wanted to go into Asia and was directed instead by illness into Philippi.

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