In determining the habits need to ensure our salvation, we need to see what Micah said God requires of us. This devotional reading looks at what is good and how we are to do justice, love kindness, and walk with God.
Nuggets
- We get surety in our salvation when we follow what God has specifically told us is good.
- We get surety in our salvation when we are just as God is.
- We get surety in our salvation when we exhibit loving kindness as God does.
- We get surety in our salvation when we remain in sync walking with God.
We are called to salvation. Then we are called to obedience.
God tells us exactly what is required of us to live for Him. He used Micah to pass the word on to us.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the The Surity of Our Salvation study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this study is Beveridge’s sermon The Believer’s Safety
Resource
What Is Good?
“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?” (Mic. 6: 8 ESV)
We get surety in our salvation when we follow what God has specifically told us is good.
In God’s Word, good is more than just contrasted with bad. It is contrasted with evil.
Good, in the biblical sense, is the workings of God within His people through His holy, pure, and righteous behavior.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
Evil is equated with sin because it is that which goes against God and His purposes.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Glossary
When Scriptures tell us about good, they mean the Good News – the gospel. It shows us our loving God. Following His laws and commandments is good for us.
God told us point blank what we need to do in order to please Him. Being good is all about being sinless and pure in God’s eyes. There is only one way to obtain that status.
God doesn’t hide what that way is. “We know that He is adamant that there is only one way to salvation.
- “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Ac. 4: 12 ESV).
- “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Ex. 20: 3-4 ESV).
- “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (Jn. 14: 6 ESV).
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
But we’re not really talking about gaining salvation. We are talking about walking with God.
How do we please God? We do what He calls us to do: do justice, love mercifully, and walk in humility with Him.
We call our journey with God our walk. Walking is the term used to describe how we live our lives, specifically our habitual state of mind, behavior, and manners. Walking with God means we are humble, reverent, teachable servants of God.
Our walk is much easier when we grow closer to God. Micah gave us practical ways to do that.
If we look at these three requirements, Hall noted how practical they are, rather than theoretical. Interesting enough, Micah told them — and us — this has nothing to do with our worship.
It had everything to do with our lives.
What? You think that is difficult to do? It isn’t if we are obedient to God.
Remember, “[we] can do all things through him who strengthens [us]” (Phil. 4: 13 ESV). We can’t do it on our only. We can only do it through God’s strength.
Doing Justice
We get surety in our salvation when we are just as God is.
The just are those men and women who have been regenerated and who live lives showing evidence they are following God’s laws and commandments and fulfilling every moral obligation.
Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Glossary
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Don’t gloss over the part of the definition where it talks about following God’s laws and commandments and fulfilling every moral obligation. We know that the laws show us God’s character. They give us our morals or spiritual graces.
We must act with honest and integrity toward each other. On doing that we have to believe God’s truth and submit to Him.
Submitting to God is actions by humans that obey God and keep His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, follow His purpose for us, and do not follow Satan’s promptings.
In order to be just, we must walk with God. Many qualifiers have been used. Walk blamelessly. Be upright. Walk faithfully.
Doing justice and being a just person is all tied up in righteousness. Righteousness is the indwelling goodness that is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments and from which all virtues flow.
Loving Kindness
We get surety in our salvation when we are exhibit loving kindness as God does.
We as disciples are called to love one another. That is the second greatest commandment. “The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ …” (Mk. 12: 31 ESV).
Glossary
We have to watch how love is interpreted, though. Nowhere in the Scriptures does it say that Christianity is to ensure that everyone has a job and that job pays a living wage. It does not mean we are tolerant of what other do and do not consider sins.
Jesus did not come as a social savior. He came as our spiritual Savior. We can sum love up as follows.
- Love is a main theme of the New Testament.
- Charity (dearness, affection or high regard) is used to translate agape (God love).
- Today, we think of charity as acts of benevolence.
- What is meant is agape (love) flavored with benevolence.
Love and kindness are related, but kindness is an element of love. Put another way, love is the feeling with kindness as the way it is expressed.
Love is to bubble out of us and shine on others in the same way that God’s glory filled the temple! This comes out of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, patience, and godliness. We don’t have the others, we really aren’t going to have to love — not true love, not God’s type of love.
Hear that loud and clear. We don’t have the godliness — we won’t have the love.
We have to remember the why we are loving others. We love them because they, like us, are children of God. That is an equalizer.
Let’s look at it another way. We are equating kindness and love. God’s character is love — it is who He is. That triggers the thought (godliness), which triggers the act itself (righteousness). So, Who God is — in fact — is controlling thoughts and behaviors.
That makes sense.
This love comes out of renovated, regenerated, and sanctified hearts.
Yes, we are to love our neighbors (Mk. 12: 31) and our enemies (Mt. 5: 44). But even though we are all made in God’s image, we are not all children of God.
- “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (II Cor. 6: 14 ESV).
- “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals’” (I Cor. 15: 33 ESV).
We have to watch with whom we associate. Yes, it says don’t ruin our morals. What are virtues? Moral excellence.
We have got to make sure we focus on God and be obedient to Him. Obedience means to hear and carry out the instructions that God gives us. We don’t let someone else talk us into lowering our moral standards.
We are to focus on God, not this world. Our job is to proclaim the gospel and make disciples so that the whole earth can be united under God’s love. God’s love shining out through us is an effective witness to those with whom we come into contact.
I am thinking godliness is the end of the continuum, but kindness and love overarch the whole continuum. God as love is involved every step of the way.
Walk Humbly with God
We get surety in our salvation when we remain in sync walking with God.
I see this verse as totally addressing the test of character. Micah started it out by saying what we were talking about in the first devotion of this series.
Christianity is the test of character. Micah told us the standard we are to use — that what God told us is good, as opposed to the evil of the world.
It is only through God’s goodness that we will become like Him. That removes us from the damaged character of this world and gives us a character worth having.
Micah noted that there we prove that we love goodness by walking humbly with God.
What Micah was saying was that, when we approach God’s throne room, we should do so with the right attitude. We have to focus on God and our worship of Him.
We do have unity with God. Sovereign God wants a relationship with sinful man. We have the privilege of walking with him.
We submit our lives and hearts totally to Him. We depend totally on Him. We agree with Him.
It is God Who inspires us to have good character. This manifests itself by the surrendering of our hearts.
Making the Connections
A life with God is all about obedience.
The original sin began with disobedience. We have to switch to obedience.
How Do We Apply This?
Above all, we need to acknowledge God’s sovereignty, accepting His requirements for our lives.
We need to genuinely ABCD, submitting totally to God.
Accept that faith in God is the only way to become perfected in this life and the next.
Resource
Father God. We see that You are good. We submit to You and want to have Your character. Help us to have Your character that seeps down into our being. Amen.
What do you think?
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