Micah 6:6-8 NLT 6 What can we bring to the Lord? Should we bring him burnt offerings? Should we bow before God Most High with offerings of yearling calves? 7 Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins? 8 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.
Matthew 22:35-40 NLT 35 One of them [a Pharisee], an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Observation
We are a people who love metrics, the objective ways we measure achievement, commitment, success, winning. These metrics are beneficial when an activity or performance has truly objective measures of success and achievement. Winners in many sports can be measured in these ways – the number of shots in golf, the number of missed balls in tennis, the number of players across home base in baseball, and so on. The “even playing field” (consistent rules and method of scoring) also provides a relative method of comparison to all those who have competed in the sport in the past. This is why competitors are not only focused on finishing first but also doing it in record time or by beating a record score. Controversy begins to increase as we apply metrics to more subjective activities that rely on a judge’s opinion using a grading system (e.g., gymnastics, diving, skating).
However, the real breakdown for us occurs when we try to create metrics for more subjective activities or performance, such as honoring the Lord. When we attempt to create rules and regulations that measure our success, achievement, or commitment by visible results or actions, we find ourselves among the Pharisees who became so focused on enforcing the rules that they lost the joy and meaning of the goal. It is as if they stopped running the race midway to stand on the course and inspect all the other competitors to find reasons to disqualify them! (Matthew 23:13 Woe to you, you teachers of the law and Pharisees. There is such a gulf between what you say and what you do. You will stand before a crowd and lock the door of the kingdom of heaven right in front of everyone; you won’t enter the Kingdom yourselves, and you prevent others from doing so.).
Impact on Me
The two passages I chose today do not lend themselves to human metrics. There is no way to keep score or objectively compare my performance to another. While there should be visible evidence of my efforts to obey, only God can truly judge my motives and effectiveness in these areas – whether and why I am faithful “to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Only He can judge how well I “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ … [and] ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Our God is Love and all He is and does is motivated by that Love. He is not looking for me to be motivated simply by a dutiful response to His authority. Rather, He wants me to love Him enough to trust Him and be as generous with my love for Him and others as He has been to me. I am not in competition with anyone one else to win His love or His favor; He has more than enough for me and has provided me with more than enough to give away to others. That is simply what He asks me to do to honor Him, to show my gratitude, to love Him in return.
Why do I want to make serving Him more physically demanding, more difficult, more challenging, more painful (no pain, no gain)? Here is where the ” walk humbly with your God” comes in. Perhaps I am so bound to human metrics and what people think that I find it hard to simply let go and let God alone make the rules and be my judge.
Prayer
Lord, I pray that I will allow You to work Your love, grace, peace, mercy in me so that I can be meek and humble, walking this earth as Jesus did, secure in Your love, overflowing with your grace and truth, allowing Your power and anointing to flow so that You are revealed in and through my life, so that others will come to know You because they meet You in me. Help me to be simply and constantly motivated by gratitude borne of love so that I will be faithful to say “yes” whenever You ask. In Jesus’ name I pray. Make it so.
Pressing On In His Footsteps 