• What does the Lord desire for you?
• How should you use the gifts and abilities God has given?
• In what way is the Lord asking you to step outside your areas of comfort and convenience?

Have you ever found yourself begging God, pleading with Him to show you what to do so that you might serve and please Him?

The world had fallen away from God and were living in corruption and idolatry.  Violence was abounding.  The time period of today resembles the prophet Micah’s day (750-687 BC).  God’s judgment was coming for the wickedness found among men, and the people were crying out to God:  What must we do?

In response, God does what HE’S ALWAYS DONE—He provides redemption.

WALK HUMBLY

In looking at the verse in backward fashion, we find the way the LORD desires for us to live.  It’s all because of what God has already done that we can fully invest ourselves in the healing of our world.  Walk with God.

Of course, this is a metaphorical wording, for we are to first and foremost have a personal relationship with the LORD.  Then, as we do, we “walk” on the path God has for us to go, and we do so with humility.  This means that in light of God’s Holy Word, we step in the direction He would have us go, and this means EVERY step.  As the LORD abides within us through His Holy Spirit, it is the Spirit who guides our words, our actions, our reactions, our thoughts, our hands, our days, our nights, and everything in between.  As God’s child, there is no space for living apart from God for His Spirit encompasses our ENTIRE being.  We cannot keep this or that little place for ourselves.  It is HIS!  It belongs to HIM for HE gave HIS ALL on the cross to pay the price of our redemption.  Therefore, we say:  “Yes, LORD, we believe and we need YOU,” then we are also saying:  “Yes, LORD, fill me up with ALL of YOU and guide my every thought, my every step, and my every day until You come for me to bring me home to the place YOU have prepared for me in eternity.”

Submission to God’s guidance means giving Him full use of the spiritual gift HE has given is to “walk humbly with your God.”  This also means not needing to take credit for all the wonderful things we “think” we have done, and not “deserving” all the recognition for the particular job or task the Lord has led us to do.  Our culture never reacts this way, so “to walk humbly” is not a natural response, for we live in a world and time when we feel as if we must post everything we do.  We market ourselves and our lives daily, saying:  “Look at me.”  Clearly, you and I cannot “walk humbly” on our own; we need to pray, making time daily to listen to God and allowing Him to refocus our day around what HE DESIRES.

In addition, this also means that we need a teachable spirit, accepting the sanctifying trimming that only God can do.  You and I cannot grow in grace without the LORD’S pruning, and this “cutting” can oftentimes be painful to our lives, but it’s necessary.  The Father may trim away relationships that pull us away from Him, and He may trim away situations, careers, and interests that lead us astray from that which He has designed for us to do.  Yes, these are for our good, so God can refocus us on what HE DESIRES.

LOVE KINDNESS

Consider for a moment the mercy the LORD has demonstrated ALREADY, not giving us what we deserve for our sins but instead gifting us with HIS amazing grace, giving us that which we could never afford or deserve.  Instead of exerting His wrath, God forgives us of our sins, and this forgiveness in over and over and . . .  Continually, until the day we go home to be with the Lord, God forgives us as we prayerfully ask.  In similar fashion, God wants us to let go of the grudges we hold so fiercely tightfisted, to show kindness to the one who has wronged us, and to give them grace.  Yes, that is what the LORD desires.

As we choose to love rather than to retaliate, then we extend grace and patience and give to others what they may not deserve (and what we would never give apart from God), but in HIS GRACE, we are to give grace to others.  This means we are to serve rather than to be served, we are to support others in their needs, and we to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  This is what HE DESIRES.

Showing mercy and kindness to others means that you and I are to help another when it’s in our power to help, not withholding the money, the food, the shelter, the provisions the LORD has provided us.  We live, putting others first and ourselves last, just as Jesus taught, and we see our blessings received as a gift and means that God has given as a way to bless others.  Now, we do not give to others only when it’s convenient to our schedules, to our life-plans, or to our calendars; we give when it is not convenient, when it’s uncomfortable, and immediately.  Truly, this is a way of life, for what the LORD has provided is to be shared with others as they have need.

• If someone needs prayer, we pray.
• If someone is sick, we visit.
• If someone is thirsty, we offer them a drink.
• If someone needs a place to sleep, we offer them a place to sleep.
• If someone is in prison, we visit.
• If someone needs food, we invite them to sit at the table with us.
• If someone needs a listening ear, we pause and really listen to them speak.
• If someone needs . . . we give to them as we have been given.

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus Himself tells us His will that HE DESIRES.

JUSTICE

Now, let us just establish how each of these actions that the LORD DESIRES are difficult and impossible on our own, for we naturally do not act and react with humility, and we do not always give of ourselves as we should.  So, it goes without saying that “to do justice” will require the Lord’s guidance just as much as the other two.  For example:  Do we always tell the truth?  Do we always treat others as we should?  Do we live faithfully within God’s moral law, repenting from our sins and turning back to HIM as we know we ought to do?  To be honest, I do not ALWAYS do as I should but often do as I want, more than as God instructs me to (do).  This morning, I say a staircase that seemed to lead to heaven.  In fact, it was a real stairway that one can actually climb in Colorado, one of 2,768 steps, an almost impossible task in the state known for its thinness of air.  On our own, we could never climb those steps to the top, to see what exists at the pinnacle, but with proper exercise, with even breathing, and with the right motivation—WE CAN REACH THE TOP.

• With God’s guidance, we can speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.
• With God’s help, we can support one who is struggling to care for their family.
• With God’s leading, we can tutor a student, sharing the knowledge the Lord has given us.
• With God’s strength, we can treat others as they should be treated.
• With God’s direction, we can teach another “to fish,” to help them “help themselves,” rather than just handing them a fish for a single meal.  We can pay forward that which we have received.

We can make daily choices in a godly way that benefits others as much as they do us.

It’s so easy to be hard-hearted, but it’s sometimes so difficult to love as Jesus loves.  Yet this is what HE DESIRES.