No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. -- Micah 6: 8 (NKJV)
This is required. These are not suggestions from God. Jesus is not our adviser -- He is our Lord! What about all of the calls for obedience in the Bible? Clearly God desires obedience.
As we dive into the key verse for today we first find that God is our sun. The sun is the source of all light, warmth and life for this planet. That is what God is for believers. We walk in a world that is filled with darkness.
Because of God's tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace." -- Luke 1: 78-79 (NLT)
It is the light of God that led us out of that darkness. As our source for light, we now have His Spirit living inside of us and now it is our turn to be the light of God for the dark world. People should see God in us. Light penetrates darkness and dispels it. That is the role we are supposed to have as believers. Far too often however we allow the darkness to snuff our light out in this world. We can either hide the light within us or mingle too closely with the darkness of this world. There are lives in the balance and we need to take our responsibility more seriously as children of the light.
God is also our source of warmth. As dark as the world is -- it is equally cold. Unforgiving and uncaring; we live in a world that seeks self-gratification and rewards selfishness. When warning about these end times, Jesus taught that even the love of many would grow cold. You cannot turn on the news without seeing this prophecy play out on a daily basis. But like the sun can warm the coldest day, the love of Christ warms the hearts of believers. In the midst of turmoil we feel His peace. In the midst of anger we feel His calm. In the midst of injustice we know His fairness. As with light, we are supposed to bring this warmth to the people freezing in the cold of this world. We are supposed to love the unlovable, tend to those no one else will. I have written before how when Jesus healed the lepers, He made it a point to touch them physically because He knew no one else would dare. THAT is who we are supposed to be as Christians -- willing to reach out and touch those the world refuses to draw near to. Too often however we can get our spiritual haughtiness going. We can confuse the righteousness of Christ for our own. When the followers of John the Baptist complained that people were going to Christ to be baptized, John correctly responded that he must decrease so that Christ could increase. That is the same formula we need to follow in our lives if we are to truly impact those that so desperately need the warmth of God's love. We need to decrease and Christ needs to increase in our lives. Remember that someone showed you the love and warmth of God when He was drawing you. Now it is our turn.
The sun is also the source of life on this planet. Without it, nothing can grow. Without God we cannot expect to grow Spiritually either. In relation to the lost world, we need to remember that we do not actually save anyone. We bring people to the foot of the cross and let God do the work. We live in a "show me" culture that demands proof and wants to see the fruit of efforts immediately. God does not operate like us however:
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. -- 1Corinthians 3: 5-7 (NIV)
God provides the increase. God is the sun. God is the source of all life. Our role is to represent Him and allow Him to give the increase. Back to the key verse we see that God is also our shield. The obvious correlation is that God is also our source of protection and defense in a world gone mad. Does this mean that Christians are exempt from calamity? Hardly! It means that the God we serve does not leave us unequipped. We have the armor of God but so few choose to equip it and use it. He has given us His Word to protect us but we need to know what it says and apply it to our lives. When the three Hebrew boys were set to be thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to the image of Nebuchadnezzar here was how their response to him began:
