Three Empowering Virtues – Part Four

“He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6: 8

The third virtue noted by the prophet Micah is “to walk humbly with God.”

“To walk humbly with your God” means to live in conscious fellowship with God.

It is to recognize God’s absolute holiness and submit to His will.

In Scripture the term “walk” often refers to a lifestyle.  To be humble means to be respectfully obedient.

We do not have the overt threats because of walking humbly with God as some are having. 

During the deep depression of the early 30s a panel of distinguished speakers was addressing a large audience from Chicago’s South Side consisting mostly of black persons. Clarence Darrow, the eminent attorney, a professed atheist, was one of the panelists.

Economic conditions were deplorable and jobs scarce. Darrow masterfully capitalized on this to depict the plight of the people and question God. He summed up their woes, concluding, “And yet you sing? No one can sing like you! What do you have to sing about?

Instantly a lady in the audience shouted, “We got Jesus to sing about!” Her response was followed by a chorus of “Amens” and “Yeses” and “That’s right.”

Darrow, uncharacteristically, was speechless. He had no response to people who can sing above their fears and tears because they walk with the one who strengthens them to do all things He wants them to do. That still works.

When Elizabeth married the ultimately famous poet Robert Browning her parents disowned her. She and Robert moved far away to Florence, Italy. She loved her parents and sought reconciliation. Several times a month she would write telling them of her love. After 10 years there came a response. She received a package from her parents which she opened with excitement. Elizabeth’s happy moment rapidly faded when she found inside all of her letters to her parents — unopened.

Elizabeth, like Robert, was a poet. Her letters of reconciliation have been called “some of the most beautiful and expressive in the English language.”  Unfortunately her parents never read them.

Like Elizabeth, our Lord went to extreme measures to achieve reconciliation. Have you left His love letters unread? As Micah said God has shown us, it is in the Book, what is good. To find what is “good” read and obey His love letters. Accept His offer of reconciliation.

Come to the cross. It is an exhortation to “do justly.” it was sin, human kind”s injustice, that put Him there. 

Come to the cross. It is an appeal to love mercy because of the mercy manifested there.

Come to the cross. It is empowering, enabling a walk with God.