Micah

From early on God has led me to Micah as His way of showing me what He requires of us as believers. Over and over He has given me the passage Micah 6:8 to internalize and guide me in my quest for more and more of Him. As we enter this holy season may we always remember that Jesus is the reason we celebrate. For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son born under humble beginnings in a manger, to teach us to be fair and show forgiveness in all the things we do. We were to become His hands and feet as we near the end of earthly time as we know it and enter into His.The Christ is the embodiment of all that He enables us to become.

It is the Lord who ultimately gives a person strength, courage, and ability to exercise the virtues of godly living.

Micah 6:8

⁸       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 with your God?

The idea here is that God seeks certain characteristics of true worship from His people. do justly … love mercy … walk humbly: These phrases summarize biblical piety in true worship. The majority of the people of Israel had violated each of these standards repeatedly. The rulers did not know justice (3:1), had no interest in mercy (3:2, 3), and demonstrated no humility (3:11).

¹² “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 

Deuteronomy 10:12

⁶ For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 

Hosea 6:6

⁶ So you, by the help of your God, return; Observe mercy and justice, And wait on your God continually. 

Hosea 12:6

¹⁷ Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow. 

Isaiah 1:17

Micah

Much of Micah’s preaching warned Judah about an impending national disaster. Yet the religious leaders of Jerusalem were falsely confident that no evil would come to them because of the inviolable presence of the holy temple in their midst. Micah sternly confronted their arrogance and their mistaken notions of God: not even the temple on Mount Zion would be spared the onslaught of God’s wrath (3:12).

The significant delay in the judgment against Jerusalem may be attributed to the mercy of the Lord. Although the judgment of Jerusalem was postponed, it was finally realized in the destruction of the city by the Babylonians in 586 b.c.

The interplay of texts of wrath and mercy in the Book of Micah mirrors the character of God, for even in His wrath He remembers mercy. In the darkest days of impending judgment on the nations of Israel and Judah, there was always the possibility of a remnant being spared. Although the Lord was determined to maintain His holiness, He was equally intent on fulfilling His loving promises to Abraham. The Lord would balance His judgment with mercy. Consequently Micah also balances his oracles of judgment with oracles of promise.

The Lord was judging His people according to the terms of the covenant. But in the middle of the oracles of judgment, Micah reveals the Lord’s wonderful promises of a glorious future. There would be a time when the coming King would gather His people together (2:12, 13), when He would establish peace (4:3), and when He would bring justice to the earth (4:2, 3). Remarkably, Micah prophesies that this coming Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (5:2).

Micah’s reference to the Messiah was quite explicit. From the time he verbalized God’s rebuke at the way the Jews were treating the poor until the time a poor carpenter and his fiancée arrived in Bethlehem, devout Jews knew that King David’s birthplace was where the Messiah would also be born.

Micah wrote the following about the town of Bethlehem seven hundred years before Jesus was born: “Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting” (5:2). And of that Ruler, he prophesied, “He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.… Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (4:2, 3)