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What does God require us to do?
What follows conversion for the Bible believing Christian? Is it about sacrifice and offering and pilgrimage as some maintain, or is it just about 'being a child of God' and resting in His presence? Or are the above, loaded, inadequate, oversimplified questions that fail to yearn for what God wants us to do and how we can please Him?
Obedience and mercy
Micah asked what the LORD requires and said
'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 before your God.' (Micah 6:8)
Since all of God's ways are just (Deut 32:4) and He wants us to imitate Him, (1 Cor 11:1) He wants us to become more like Him in our character hence He strongly desires for us to love mercy in the way He Himself does. Infact He shows mercy to thousands who love Him and keep His commandments. (Ex 20:6)
God desires mercy more than sacrifice and knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. (Hos 6:6) Formerly His people were perishing through lack of knowledge about Him (Hos 4:6)
In addition to mercy superseding sacrifice, the same is true of obedience, as King Saul found out when he failed to wipe out the Amalekites and spared King Agag and some of the prize booty! Basically obedience is often characterised by exercising faith, and it is impossible to please God without faith!
Being just
Being just, Micah's first point and also something which Isaiah expounds in the 58th Chapter, sharing bread with the hungry, clothing the naked and housing the poor. This pasage shares similarities with the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, concerning how we treat others as He commands us to, we are doing that for Him. James also describes pure and undefiled religion as visiting orphans and widows in their trouble and keeping oneself unspotted from the world. (Js 1:27)
Being Holy
But how do we keep ourselves unspotted, holy, separate, distinct though not ineffectual hyperspiritual hermits as effective witnesses in the world, but not of the world? We must be holy as He is holy (1 Pet 1:16, Lev 11:44) and if we walk in the Spirit as Paul writes to the Galatians we will not fulfil the desires of the flesh. Walking in the Spirit requires us to be guided, led and directed by the Spirit. Isaiah tells us about hearing God's voice and being shown which way to go (30:21) Don't compare yourself with this world's standards or a church standards or an institution. If you must make comparisons (other than the obvious who we should imitate), Enoch walked with God and God took Him and remember Noah walked with God and He was spared with his family whilst the rest of the earths population was flooded!
Love
A healthy Christian life should incorporate generous amounts of reading Scripture, fellowship, evangelising and praying and must be underscored by love, since John tells us that He who does not love does not know God. Similarly others will know we are His disciples if we love one another (John 13:35) and by love I don't mean the care bear, send my love, superficial, fickle, taken for granted expressions, I mean agape -unselfish and yes sacrificial love which is referred to in 1 Cor 13 and in each instance throughout John's three epistles! Jesus put it like this
'Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.' (John 15:13)
Examples for our admonition
'Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ages have come.' (1 Cor 10:11)
So now that being just, walking in the Spirit, love, obedience, mercy and imitating Christ have been briefly mentioned, what next? Sometimes it's helpful to study biblical characters, one of my favourite being Job who God described as 'there is none like him on earth' and the reason being that he was blameless, upright, feared God and shuns evil. Couldn't we learn from Job not to flirt with evil but to absolutely abhor it simply because it is abhorrent in God's eyes and that our Father in heaven is of purer eyes than to behold evil?
And what about Nehemiah? What an example of a Godly leader, singleminded, a sword in one hand and the other building the temple doing the Lord's work. Did the word 'compromise' even enter his mindset, I am convinced he would have rather died than taking a break from his calling...
And Jeremiahs words confirm that its not about humanistic wisdom, might or riches or self glorification as the myriads of psychologists would have us believe 'But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,' says the LORD' (Jer 9:24)
God wants us to press on in our faith, fight the good fight and to go onto maturity. God wants us to give attention to reading, doctrine, to contend for the faith and have regular fellowship and encourage one another. We are not called to make converts but disciples, those who are willing to take up their cross and follow Him.
And yes - He wants us to know Him, and His ways and to desire knowledge of Him.We have been called not only to believe in Him but to suffer for His name sake, (see Phil 1:27) though God does not delight in sacrifice but in obedience because our obedience demonstrates our faith not in ourselves but in Him, and it is impossible to love God without faith, if we do not love God then we do not know Him - IF WE DO LOVE HIM WE WILL OBEY HIS COMMANDMENTS AND THANKS BE TO GOD JOHN REASSURES US THAT HIS COMMANDMENTS ARE NOT BURDENSOME! (1 John 5:3)
Amen! |
