“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
– Micah 6:8

Just prior to this famous verse, the prophet rhetorically asks whether God desires ritual devotion, excellent offerings, or extravagant sacrifices. No!!! God desires justice, kindness, and a humble, ongoing relationship with Him.

God desires for His people to do justice. Not simply to think about justice, but to do it. Not to dismiss justice, but to pursue it. We’re called to action, not mere contemplation or hollow words. Subsequent verses make clear what doing justice looks like: fair dealings with those who are poor, powerless, vulnerable, and ripe for exploitation. God’s people must be concerned for those with less prominence, power, and privilege in whatever society we inhabit. Justice isn’t a political agenda, it’s God’s agenda.

God desires for His people to love kindness. Kindness. Like what God demonstrated through His Son Jesus, who set down His heavenly glory to enter our broken world, to love and teach those who hungered for the Lord before sacrificing Himself on a cross for our sins. Kindness. A deep concern for others, even in an age of extreme callousness, cruelty, and contempt for others (I’m speaking of our time, not Micah’s). Kindness isn’t weakness, it’s Christlikeness.

God desires for His people to walk humbly with Him. To submit to Him. To follow Him. To accept His authority over every aspect of our lives. To accept His authority, even on those matters we want to hold onto ourselves. To walk in humility, knowing that we are sinners saved by grace, not modern day Pharisees saving ourselves by form and ritual. To show that humility to both the Lord and all those around us. Humility isn’t optional, it’s required.

You know what is good. Will you do it?

“I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the Lord.”
– Psalm 104:33-34

As we consider singing praise to God as long as we live, we must surely realize that our life won’t always be pleasant or easy. “As long as I live” includes times of health and times of illness. Times of strength and times of weakness. Times when the world goes our way and times when nothing seems to go our way. Times of love and times of loneliness. Seasons of success and seasons of failure. Nonetheless, like the psalmist, we too can sing to the Lord as long as we live. How?

By rejoicing “in” the Lord, not merely for or to Him. The psalmist isn’t merely rejoicing for the Lord or for what the Lord has done or given. Those are good and important things for which we should rejoice and give thanks. Nonetheless, our outward circumstances and material blessings shouldn’t be the primary cause of our rejoicing. Our greatest source of joy must be that we are in the Lord!

As followers of Jesus, Christ is in us and we are in Him. We are united with Him. He Who suffered all things for our redemption promises that He is with us always. He will neither leave us nor forsake us. In Christ, God calls us beloved child and friend. We call Him Father and know that He is the perfect Father. He welcomes us before Him. He listens to us. He loves us. He forgives us. This is how and why we sing to the Lord as long as we live and why we can and should praise Him for however long we draw breath. May our meditations please Him. “Rejoice in the Lord always, again, I will say, rejoice!”

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” – 2 Corinthians 3:18

The new life we enjoy in Jesus Christ is meant to be a life of ongoing transformation. Once we believe in Jesus, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit Who guarantees our salvation. The Spirit, in turn, desires to work a wondrous transformation within us from whatever we once were into being like Jesus Himself.

This is a process, a journey of a thousand miles. With each step, we are to grow in God’s glory. With each step, we are to “put off” a bit more of our old nature and “put on” more of Jesus. With each passing day, week, month, and year, we should more fully speak the words of Jesus, think the thoughts of Jesus, and do the actions of Jesus as we demonstrate yet more of the Fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

If that describes your life, praise God! If that doesn’t describe your life, then realize this is neither a passive process nor an automatic one. Though salvation is guaranteed through faith in Christ, we must actively cooperate with the Spirit to grow in Christlikeness, experience transformation, and more richly see God’s glory in our lives. We have work to do in pursuing the holiness, character, and person of Christ each day.

We must be people of frequent worship (public and private) and of life in the Word (reading, studying, meditating on, and memorizing Scripture). We must be people of prayer, walking and talking with God. We must be people in deep community with others who are walking the path of transformation. We must be people who serve the Lord diligently. We must be people who share our hope in Christ. What God desires and does in us is glorious. Please, please, please don’t let anything hold you back from experiencing that!!!

“Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over how God had prepared the people, for it had come about suddenly.” – 2 Chronicles 29:36

It’s easy to become discouraged by our culture’s movement away from God. We read the articles, hear the statistics, and personally witness the decline of faith in the West. It’s easy to move from these observations to a mistaken belief that it’s all inevitable and inexorable. It is not!!!

In His timing, God can bring about dramatic awakening and revival. Moreover, He can do so unexpectedly and extraordinarily quickly! It’s happened before in the Western world and also throughout biblical history.

After a long generation of unfaithfulness, King Hezekiah was God’s chosen instrument to bring Judah back to faithfulness. He motivated the priests and Levites to faithfulness and called upon the people of Judah and Israel and they responded. They responded with joy and delight, with a profound, God-given hunger for fellowship and the worship of the Lord. Hezekiah’s revival saw a movement of faith that hadn’t been seen in centuries.

All that took place immediately after one of the most faithless times in Judah’s history. So never give up hope! Trust in the Lord. Pray without ceasing for a new awakening. Be faithful and serve well in the place and time God has appointed for you.

“As far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
– Psalm 103:12

Please, please, please understand that this is true!!! When God forgives your sins and mistakes, they are completely forgiven and completely gone forever! God doesn’t hold your failures over you, nor will He throw them in your face. Once forgiven, He will never think or speak of your failures again. If it feels otherwise, please understand that that isn’t God doing that to you, it’s the devil!

God’s glorious forgiveness isn’t some difficult or unobtainable reward. It is the result of Christ’s work on the cross. Through His sacrificial death and physical resurrection, Jesus Christ dealt with your sins forever. There is nothing you can or should try to add to His work on the cross. All you must do is believe in Him.

Scripture is clear, that if Christ-followers confess our sins to God, He will always, always, always forgive us, cleanse us, and love us. If you’ve asked God’s forgiveness, then your sins are gone forever in His eyes. Unfortunately, forgiving yourself can be the hardest part sometimes. Please believe that Christ’s blood has washed you clean from that sin. Forgive yourself. God has forgiven you. Forgive yourself. Walk into this day hand-in-hand with your Father in Heaven, forgiven and free.