Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Listen to what the Lord is saying: “Stand up and state your case against me. Let the mountains and hills be called to witness your complaints. And now, O mountains, listen to the Lord’s complaint! He has a case against his people. He will bring charges against Israel. “O my people, what have I done to you? What have I done to make you tired of me? Answer me! For I brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from slavery. I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to help you. Don’t you remember, my people, how King Balak of Moab tried to have you cursed and how Balaam son of Beor blessed you instead? And remember your journey from Acacia Grove to Gilgal, when I, the Lord, did everything I could to teach you about my faithfulness.” 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? 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? 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
The prophet speaks a word from Heaven’s courts to Israel, particularly
Jerusalem, about their failure to honor the blessings they had received by God’s
mercy and miraculous leading, from the time they left the bondage of being Pharaoh’s
slaves in Egypt until they were given Canaan land as God’s promise of continued
blessing. At every step God had blessed
and, in the end, Jerusalem fell into lip service instead of genuine worship. They offered sacrifices of bulls and rams by
the herd, but with their lives they ignored the weightier issue of living life
in full dedication to God’s will. Three
hundred years prior, Israel’s chronicler recorded the nation’s responsibility
for resetting their national compass:
Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
Now, as a last ditch offer of mercy, the Lord reminds Israel of their
covenant requirements through the prophet Micah. It was time to reset the national compass.
Today is Inauguration Day for the presidency of our nation. It is a quadrennial occurrence of a (supposedly)
peaceful transfer of power from an outgoing administration’s chief to the
next. To this moment it has been
anything but serene and reassuring. It
has been more than a rocky road; it has been a war zone, complete with storming
the halls of government.
Inauguration speeches by a new leader traditionally carry hope for the
future, and a call to unselfish patriotism, with humility towards one
another. It is my fervent wish that this
transition of power, however uncertain to this point, will teach us the lesson
we need to learn – God is not mocked…whatever we have been sowing, both
nationally as a people, and personally in our lives…we will continue to reap.
Toward that end, let us remember that doing what is right, not party
affiliation and power, but righteousness and justice, with humility before God
and with each other, is our only hope of living-out what it is going to take to
have our land healed of its divisiveness and anger.
There is no other way for any nation under God.
For You Today
And the way to begin the “rooting” out of anger is to confess it in
prayer, and then resolve to act towards all, as Abraham Lincoln spoke to a
nation suffering the division of civil war:
[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For other posts on this text see America // Israel and Do WHAT?
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