a God of sternness and inexorable justice only. Some men think that God delights in the misery of people. They suppose that God sits in Heaven with a heavy club gleefully awaiting the moment when He can dash His creatures to the ground. But this is not true. Our God is the God of love. When John searched for a definition of God, the. Holy Spirit gave him this: “ God is love” (1 John 4:8). God takes no pleas ure in the death of the wicked. He did not make hell for His own good pleas ure. We know that God is love because it was His love that sent His own Son to die for the sins of the world (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; 8:32). Some men think of God as One who is satisfied with mere offerings. This was the trouble with Israel when Micah gave his prophecy (Micah 6:6, 7). How many there are who substitute for malism and legalism for true heart-love for the Lord! It is not enough to go through prescribed motions; it is not enough to be faithful in forms; it is not enough even to make sacrifices unto God. These things mean nothing if there is not a deep love for the Saviour and a desire in the heart to please Him in everything (Luke 10:27; Rom. 6:17; Rom. 10:9, 10). But we are not left in the dark re garding God’s character and His re quirements of men. Micah clearly states “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good” (Micah 6:8). God’s people Israel remained in wilful ignorance concerning the will of God for their lives. The same is true of people today. God sent His Son into the world to declare His char acter (John 1:18), to inform men of His will (Matt. 5-7), and to provide for their salvation (Luke 19:10; John 1:12; 3:36) but still the majority of men live in spiritual darkness! Note the three great requirements of Micah 6:8 are indicative of God’s will for men today: God Requires a Man to Do Justly This is the first statement of the text. What do these words mean? To do justly is to live righteously in relation to other men. God is not speaking here of how a man is saved. No man was ever saved by being good, for no man since Adam has been good (Rom. 3:9- 23). But the Christian is expected to live a clean and righteous life because he is a child of God. It is here that some believers fall down. They forget that when they became the children of God, they obligated themselves to live like His children. The Christian ought to study Matthew 5-7, the “ Sermon on the Mount,” which sets forth the spirit ual principles that are expected to govern the believer’s life. The Christian ought carefully and prayerfully to study the teaching of Romans 6-8 In this same connection. Note in this section of Romans that Paul shows five reasons why the sincere Christian will live a holy life.
The world ought to sense a great dif ference in the life of its own and in the life of a Christian. The great trouble with the church today is the fact that believers live so much like worldlings that there is very little distinction. Let the Christian practice such passages of Scripture as Rom. 12-15; Gal. 5:22-6:9; Eph. 4-6. Are these things manifest in your life? God Requires a Man to Love Mercy What does it mean to love mercy? It means that the Christian will be like Christ in his relations with other people. The Lord Jesus was forgiving, and the believer ought to be, too (Matt. 6:12-15; Eph. 4:30-22). There is great need of forgiveness in the church to day. Some Christians harbor a bitter, unforgiving spirit for years. Such a thing should never be. The more like Christ a man becomes the more forgiv ing he will be. Mercy involves patience. How patient the Lord has been with each of us! Think of the many times His disciples disappointed Him, and yet He was patient with them. Read through one of the Gospels and note the occasions when our Lord kindly and patiently bore with the weaknesses and ignorance of the disciples. (Study Rom. 12:10; Gal. 5:22; Eph. 4:32 in this connec tion.) Mercy involves tolerance. Surely, there is great need for tolerance among God’s people today! Many Christians are no better than denominational bigots. One believer insists that a cer tain Scripture must be interpreted his way, and another insists with equal doggedness that it must be interpreted his way. The Scripture in question has nothing to do with salvation, and is no doubt, a minor issue, but each of these Christians forms a new denomination and adds another rift in an already fragmentized Church. When will God’s people learn the needed lessons of unity in essentials and love in nonessentials? God Requires a Man to Walk Humbly With Him The test of true faith and spiritual understanding is humility. The man who realizes the meaning of justifica tion by faith alone is a humble man (Rom. 3:27; Eph. 2:8, 9). The man who understands that he is helpless in him self and fully dependent upon God for everything is a humble man and walks humbly with his God (Rom. 7:18; 2 Cor. 4:7). Humility is a mark of true greatness, for even our blessed Lord humbled Him self when He became a man (Phil. 2 :fi l l ) . The man who is greatest in the kingdom of God is the man who is humblest (Luke 14:7-15). The Christian does not need to worry about exalting himself. Let him be faithful in his daily life and service and God will exalt him in due time (1 Peter 5:6).
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