“With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what isgood; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”
In this text, the first question the people asked is: “With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God?” In other words, “What is wrong with God? Why is He displeased with us? We’re going through the rituals and the liturgy and the rites of religion. We are going through an outward form, and it is the form which He gave us to go through. So why is He not hearing us and why is He so far away?” But God had also given them a relationship with Himself which they had lost. God was more interested in that relationship than He was in the rituals.
The prophet Micah said “He has shown you, O man, what is good …” For this blog, I would like to randomly go through these verses and pick the prescription God has given us to know what is good and then address them from bottom up. Here they are:
I want to start with #3. Walking humbly before God; First of all, has He become your God? I am not talking about your mother’s God, your father’s God or your friend’s God. Has He become your God? Because, when He becomes your God, you will walk humbly before Him and others and you will have passion for Him.
St Augustine said “should you ask me: what is the first thing in religion? I should reply: the first, the second and the third thing therein is humility”. Usually when I see someone who has fallen into sin, I say to myself “there, but for the grace of God, go I”. One of the key elements we need to understand in all of Christianity is that, we are what we are by the grace of God. I believe if we can understand that, we will learn to walk humbly before our God.
Paul, who I think is the greatest of all apostles, said: “I am the least of the apostles” 1 Corinthians 15:9. “I am the least of the saints” Ephesians 3:8. “I am the chief of sinners” 1 Timothy 1:15. John Wesley, looking into his own heart, said: “I see nothing but hell”. John Bunyan said: “When I saw John Bunyan as God saw John Bunyan, I did not say I was a sinner, I said I was sin from the top of my head to the soles of my feet”. Are you humble? Do you walk humbly before your God or you walk like you are God himself? An unconverted person is totally incapable of producing this kind of righteousness. To be continued …
I’ll leave you for now. If we don’t meet again, I’ll see you at the dinner table in Papa’s house.
Pastor King