M is for Micah

Very few people know who Micah is. Being a minor prophet, he is not as popular as Isaiah or Jeremiah. Very few people read Micah, too. His book is not as action-packed as Jonah or as romantic as Ruth. But he has a message that is as relevant today as it was during his time.

Micah was a country boy who prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah – the Southern Kingdom. He was a contemporary of Isaiah. While Isaiah ministered to the elite (to the kings of Judah at the capital), Micah took his message to the streets… that is, to the ordinary people, like you and me.

Micah states exactly what many, to this day, wonder about how to please God. In Micah’s time, the people of Israel and Judah believed that if their gods were given the right amount of animal sacrifices and religious rituals, then the gods would repay them with rain, good harvests and success in battles. It was like “deal or no deal” -- “I give you this much, so you will surely bless me more.” As long as the people kept doing the right religious stuff, they could live how they liked and God would be ok with it. How many times have we, consciously or unconsciously thought the same way? How many of us go to church on Sundays but then, still continue living the “worldly way” from Mondays to Saturdays?

The people of Judah, at that time thought that they could get away with it. The rich and those in power were exploiting the poor. Judges could be brought by bribes, merchants used deceptive weights. There were many corrupt rulers, false prophets and ungodly priests. Micah warned them of their coming judgment – captivity. No one believed him then.

Micah spoke out against their wrong beliefs. His great theme is that God is a God of justice and love. God expects the rich and the powerful to show justice in the way they treat the poor and the weak. He does not want thousands of animal sacrifices. He does not want empty mechanical worship. What does God require?

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

God does not look for big-time external displays. What is required? Slow down and read the list aloud: To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. Period.

Little Plant

Then the Lord said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to grow, which came overnight and perished overnight. And should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" Jonah 4:10,11 (NASB)

We often think of Jonah as the story of a runaway prophet and how God used a big fish to get him back on track. But that's just the main story line. There is a subplot to this story that is just as important and it reveals to us a lot about the compassion of God.

Jonah had nothing but contempt for what God calls “that great city” of Nineveh. You cannot blame him though. For Jonah after all, is an Israelite, a prophet from North. And Nineveh was the capital city of the mighty Assyrian empire – Israel’s greatest enemy. To preach a message of repentance to the notoriously cruel Assyrians would be like helping Israel’s enemies. The reason he didn't want to go preach there was that he was afraid the wicked people of Nineveh might actually listen to him, repent, and God would spare them. That's the last thing he wanted to have happen. He really wanted God to destroy them for their wickedness. He felt so righteous about this that he went off and pouted after preaching to them, sitting on a hill overlooking the city waiting for God's wrath that never came.

While he sat there in the hot sun getting madder by the minute, God caused a vine to grow up and give shade to him, but no sooner had He done this than the plant withered and died leaving Jonah once again exposed to the hot sun. This angered Jonah all the more, and that was when God brought to his attention the 120,000 people and many cattle in the city of Nineveh who were worth a lot more than Jonah's silly little plant, and his poor self exposed to the hot sun. “Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

Do we have this Jonah-like attitude of contempt for people we do not like? For people whom we feel deserve the judgment they will get for their sins? This is a dangerous attitude to have, because just like everyone else, we are also not righteous enough, we also deserve the judgment of God. Our only hope is the grace of God. That was Nineveh's hope, too. That is also the hope of everyone else. Do we have a hard time seeing it applied to someone we despise? Remember the great compassion and mercy of God to a wicked city. May we also learn to have just a fraction of that compassion and share God’s love to anyone and everyone alike.

A Higher Standard by Max Lucado

Most of my life, I’ve been a closet slob. I was slow to see the logic of neatness. Then I got married. Denalyn was so patient. She said she didn’t mind my habits… if I didn’t mind sleeping outside. Since I did, I began to change.

I rediscovered the muscles used for hanging shirts and placing the toilet paper on the holder. My nose was reintroduced to the fragrance of bathroom air fresheners. By the time Denalyn’s parents came to visit, I was a new man. I could go three days without throwing a sock behind the couch.

But then came the moment of truth. Denalyn went out of town for a week. Initially I reverted to the old man. I figured I’d be a slob for six days and clean out on the seventh. But something strange happened, a curious discomfort. I couldn’t relax with dirty dishes in the sink. When I saw an empty potato chip bag on the floor, I actually bent over and picked it up! And I put my bath towel back on the rack! What had happened to me?

Simple. I had been exposed to a higher standard.

Isn’t that what has happened with us? Isn’t that the heart of Paul’s argument (Romans 6:1-7)? How could we who have been freed from sin return to it? Before Christ, our lives were out of control, sloppy, indulgent. We didn’t even know we were slobs until we met Him.

Then He moved in. Things began to change. What we threw around we began putting away. What we neglected we cleaned up. What had been clutter became order. Oh, there were and still occasional lapses of thought and deed, but by and large He got our house in order.

Suddenly we find ourselves wanting to do good. Go back to the old mess? Are you kidding? “In the past you were slaves to sin – sin controlled you. But thank God, you fully obeyed the things that you were taught. You were made free from sin, and now you are slaves to goodness.” (Romans 6:17-18).

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him.”
Philippians 2:13 NLT


Excerpted from : Experiencing the Heart of Jesus. Book 1.
Max Lucado © 2003 OMF Literature Phil.
pp.186-187.

Heart Monitor

Are you familiar with a Holter heart monitor? It’s a little contraption the size of a Walkman that is strapped around a patient’s waist for 24 hours. It has seven cords plugged into it, each one attached to an electrode taped somewhere on the patient’s body. The little monitor has a battery-powered computer chip in it that records every heartbeat for 24 hours so that the doctor can check the behavior of the heart over the course of an average day. The patient is encouraged to continue his normal routine, even play sports as long as the contraption does not get wet. With loose clothes on, no one could tell that the person is wearing anything special.

In a spiritual sense, our hearts are being monitored all day, all the time. “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7) God’s got a lifetime, (more than) 24-hour heart monitor attached to each one of us and He knows our condition at any given time.

Spiritually speaking, our heart condition is a very complex matter. The Bible says our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked and the situation is worse than we can ever understand (Jeremiah 17:9). But our hearts can also love God and desire to please Him. David was known to have had a heart after God even when he committed one grievous sin after another. One thing’s for sure, only God can fully know our hearts. “But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives” (Jeremiah 17:10).

This knowledge is both uncomfortable and comforting at the same time. Uncomfortable, because God knows the worst about us, (even the secrets that we want to be buried six feet under); but comforting in that He still loves us in spite of it.

So, what do we do now? We rejoice because we have a gracious God who accepts us for who we are. And because of this wonderful love, we will strive to be His best children we can ever be; to carry out His mission in the world – to be the light and salt of this world. In doing so, we do not and cannot rely on our own deceitful hearts. While living out our daily lives, in making day to day decisions, we need to rely on prayer and a daily review of His word through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We cannot live a life that is acceptable to God without relying on Christ and on His revealed Truth – the Bible.