What Is Good/Live It!

Micah was the inspiration for this blog.

A prophet to the people of God, Micah warned of the coming captivity, a punishment on the nation Israel for not following God's Word. For Micah, God's direction was pretty straightforward:

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

Again, the same two themes are present. The first is to love God ("...walk humbly with your God.") and the second is to live in harmony with your fellow man ("...To act justly and to love mercy...").

The key to accomplishing both is acknowledging that we can't do either without God's help. God gave us the Ten Commandments, in fact, to show us just how desperately incapable we are of being righteous on our own. So leaning on God (which requires humbling yourself) is the first essential step.

From that point, we begin a daily walk with God. Imagine walking with someone very important and meaningful to you. Let's say, the President or a famous author or an accomplished authority in your career field.

As you spend time with that person, wouldn't you avoid doing things that would offend him or her? Instead, you'd try to say and do things that would impress the person. Also, you'd try to learn what you could from the person while you're together.

That's all God asks of us. Then, He expects us to apply what we've learned in practical living.

My desire is to grow closer to God. It's a goal that's hard to achieve. Somehow, I let things get in the way. I struggle, like the Apostle Paul, against this human nature that draws me away from God.

Maybe, just maybe, if I keep my personal vision and mission statements at the forefront of my mind, I'll do a better job of getting there. We'll see. It's better than giving up.

What Is Good/Go Deep

I'm just wondering.
What is it that takes me so off track from the course God sets for me?

God makes it simple. I tend to complicate it.

Consider the Ten Commandments. The first four are focused on how we should relate to God. The final six govern how we should relate to our fellow man. There are only ten, easily grasped.

Jesus summarized them in two simplified statements: ". . .'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' "--Luke 10:27

I've worked on vision and mission statements for several organizations. If done well, those statements can be used as a guide for making decisions that will keep an organization on track to achieving its goals.

But, I've never created personal vision and mission statements. Seems like a good idea. The model I've used goes like this: the vision statement is a concise statement of your overarching goal and the mission statement expresses how you plan to reach that goal.

Here's my attempt:

• Vision - My goal is to grow ever closer to God as I conform my spiritual and physical walks to the example of Jesus Christ.
• Mission - I will (a) love God and (b) love mankind in Jesus name.

The theory is this. Using these two statements as my guide, I should be able to evaluate whether the activities of my life help or hurt my reaching the goal. Then, as I have opportunity to add new activities to my schedule, I can use these guides to add only those things that will move me closer to the prize.

Good in theory. How will it work in practice?

What Is Good/Think About It

What is good.
That's a statement that we tend to turn into a question.

Partly because it's the tendency of mankind to make complicated what God has made simple.

The Pharisees in Jesus' time were perfect examples of this. These religious lawyers took God's Ten Commandments and expanded them into literally thousands of rules and regulations that burdened life and obscured the true image of God.

"How so?" you ask. The original Law painted a picture of the holiness of God. To truly know Him, you need only to study His Law. Later, Jesus came as the incarnate Word, giving us an even clearer sense of who God is and what He desires of us.

Yet, the Pharisees had so complicated the Law of God, they didn't even recognize Jesus when he came on the scene. In their heart of hearts, the Pharisees probably thought they were pleasing God. And they worked very hard at it, too. The problem was that in their zeal to please God in their own strength, they substituted their laws for His.

God's people seemingly have always had this problem--that is, losing sight of what God has made so very plain.

In Old Testament times, when the people would get off track, the prophets were there to spell out (once again) who God was and what He demanded of His people. Micah was one of those prophets, and his assignment was to speak to the people of Israel and Judah just prior to the Captivity of Israel.

With God's judgment about to fall, Micah took time to remind the people why they had been chosen and set apart for God.

Questions for you to consider: Are you one of God's chosen? Then what does God expect of you? Has life's complications (and your own efforts) obscured your picture of who God is?

Think about it and we'll continue this discussion mid-week.