He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Recite using the acronym:
H H T Y , O M , W I G ; A W D T L R O Y B T D J , A T L K , A T W H W Y G ? MICAH 6:8
Read Full Passage HERE
Dive Deeper:
This verse isn’t an exhaustive list of demands, but what it does require, it requires much of.
We aren’t just called to encourage justice or just prevent injustice when it’s convenient, but we’re called to DO justice. We aren’t just called to be kind or to merely hate wickedness, but we’re called to LOVE the kindness we are called to. And finally, we aren’t just called to be humble or not be prideful, but instead to walk every step in humility with God. Not merely thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less and, most importantly, thinking more of God.
Sadly, in large, we’ve become a generation that would rather talk about the terrible injustice in the world than do justice in our community. We have become more known for what we are against than what we are for. We’ve merely thought kind words of our brother rather than speaking them aloud. We’ve even turned our perceived humility into pride.
We like to subscribe to moral and ethical ideologies more than we like to put them into action. We are not just called to believe, but we are also called to action rooted in our belief. The book of James speaks on this tendency, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing,” (James 1:22-25).
To see if you struggle with this issue of passivity and inaction like so many of us, think on the following:
- How many conversations this week have you had where you discussed the brokenness going on in the world?
- How good did it feel to confess your sin to a brother or sister in Christ and get your darkness out into the open?
And now respond to the following questions in your mind:
- When was the last time I took an actionable step out to be a vehicle of restoration for the brokenness in this world instead of just pointing it out?
- Have I moved beyond the good feeling of being vulnerable about my sin, moved into urgency for repentance, and actually made steps to turn away from that sin?
The truth is that many of us have allowed the coffee shop convictions and confessions to relieve the weight to the point of no urgency for action. We’ve allowed confession to be the ultimate goal of the Christian community and, in doing so, have prevented true repentance from taking its shape. Confession isn’t a means to an end but a call to action for change. What’s true is that the enemy is entirely content in our mere discussions of the problem of sin in us and the world, as long as it never leads to real action.
So, my challenge to you is to, yes, allow the coffee shop conversation to relieve the weight of hidden sin but also allow a new weight to take its place. A weight of urgency, that motivates your convictions to action that will truly lead to a repentant heart. Ultimately, we must allow our convictions towards kindness to produce in us actions of kindness, we must allow our anger towards the world’s injustice to produce our urgency to do justice to the people around us, and we must never allow our talk of humility to be greater than our humility in action.