I was
prayer-walking recently when Micah 6:8 came to mind with the kind of
sharp clarity that often proves to be the prompting of the Spirit. I
pulled it up on my phone app and read it:
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? (Micah 6:6–8)
Two words stopped my in my tracks: “Love kindness.” The imperative scanned my heart like a searchlight. Do I really
love kindness? Or do I mainly love the idea of kindness? I frequently
pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my
thoughts!” (Psalm 139:23). He was taking me up on my invitation.
This heart examination continued and spread through the rest of verse: Do I really
“do justice”? Or do I mainly affirm the idea of justice? Is my "doing
justice" mainly "not doing injustice" myself, but rarely pursuing
justice for others?
Micah
6:8 exposes me: I can love abstract ideas of justice and kindness, and
neglect their concrete expression. It admonishes me: I cannot “do
justice” or “love kindness” without loving real people. It humbles me,
which is just what the Doctor ordered, if I’m really ready to walk with
him.
Do Justice
My flesh
would prefer the command to, “Love justice.” Phrased that way, justice
subtly becomes more abstract, and it’s always easier to affirm what’s
abstract than perform what’s concrete.
For
example, if asked, virtually everyone will say they love justice. But
probe into how someone is specifically doing justice, and conversations
turn awkward quickly. It’s much easier to “love justice” than to “do
justice.” It’s much easier to rant against injustice than to take
meaningful action to stop it. Ranting costs us little to nothing. Doing justice makes personal, time-consuming, heart-rending demands on us.
That’s
why when people asked John the Baptist what repentance looked like, his
answers were things such as, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with
him who has none,” or, “Collect no more [taxes] than you are authorized
to do,” or, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false
accusation, and be content with your [soldiers’] wages” (Luke 3:11–14).
Feeling conviction over sin and getting dunked in water was good, but it
wasn’t enough. The heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). Real heart
transformation would be revealed in tangible, sacrificial acts of
justice.
Loving the idea
of justice is cheap. But doing justice almost always requires loving a
vulnerable or oppressed person in a way that is personally costly to us.
True love is not cheap, so God tests our hearts by making justice
concrete, something we must do.
Love Kindness
When it
comes to kindness, God flips this around and commands us to “love
kindness,” not “do kindness.” Why? Because the command to “love
kindness” has the same heart revealing effect as the command to “do
justice.”
My flesh
would prefer (only slightly) the command to read, “Do kind things.” In
this case, commanding action rather than affection is a bit more
manageable and measurable (particularly when measured against others).
But the
command to “love kindness” pierces to the heart of things. This is far
more demanding than merely doing kind things, which can easily be
reduced to “occasional kind acts.” Loving kindness demands a deep
structure heart orientation that shapes all our actions.
This
command is also abstraction-resistant. Loving kindness is a kind of
loving, for “love is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4). And we can’t love
kindness without loving people. We might be able to get away with
telling others we love justice without doing much justice. But it’s very
difficult to get away with saying we love kindness if others know us to
often be harsh, defensive, self-centered, impatient, irritable,
critical, or willing to step on people to get our way.
We wear our love of kindness (or lack of it) on our sleeves.
And like
doing justice, loving kindness is costly. It almost always requires
loving people in ways that place their needs and preferences ahead of
our own. We can’t love kindness and love selfishness at the same time.
So, God tests our hearts by making kindness not merely things we do, but
something we love.
Walk Humbly
As I
stood that day, letting the Spirit shine the searchlight of Micah 6:8
into my heart, recent unkind words, actions, and non-actions flashed
through my mind, along with the faces of those who had received my
unkindness. I began, and continue, to repent of my failures to love
kindness. And as the searchlight has exposed my failures to do justice, I
am repenting of that too, and trying to discern what doing justice
should look like for me.
The
Spirit is using this verse in my heart to fulfill what it commands. He
once again has told me what he requires; and in the telling, he is
exposing my sin; and in the exposing, he is kindly leading me to
repentance (Romans 2:4), and in leading me to repentance, he is teaching
me to walk humbly with my God.
Walking humbly with God is to walk in repentance. That’s why Martin Luther said
in his first of 95 Theses, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said,
‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of
repentance.” To walk in repentance is not to walk in condemnation, but
in freedom. For the Father so loved us in kindness (Ephesians 2:7), that
he sent his only Son to do justice for us (Romans 3:26), in supreme
humility (Philippians 2:5–8), that we might have eternal life in which
to know and enjoy him (John 3:16; Philippians 3:8–11).
The
glorious gospel miracle is that what God requires of us in Micah 6:8, he
purchases for us and accomplishes in us. So when the Spirit convicts a
Christian of sin, he never condemns (Romans 8:1). His searchlight is
redemptive. He exposes us only to break the power of cancelled sin and
set us increasingly free to walk as Christ walked (1 John 2:26): doing
justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.
