[Steve Myers] We've been talking about what does God require of us as His people? What does God looking for when it comes to our behavior and how we treat others, how we treat Him? Micah 6:8 talks about those things specifically and narrows it down to just a couple of items that we need to quiz ourselves on to make sure we're in line with what God's expectations are. That is kind of interesting as this whole section begins in Micah 6:8, it begins with "He has shown you, O man, what is good." You know, when we want to find an example of the way we should live and what God is seeking when it comes to us, look at His Word. Look at the example that Jesus Christ Himself said, this is almost a little prophetic type of thing as well, that we can look at the word of God, we can look at Jesus Christ Himself and recognize this is what's God's looking for. He's looking for this kind of an individual who strives to live like Christ. 

Now, with that in mind, He gives a second item, like there's a third one coming so I'll go ahead and write number three here. First, He talked about doing justly. Secondly, He says, "To love mercy." Love mercy, not just be merciful but to love it, to love mercy. And when you think about God has shown us these things. As He really shown us that He is merciful, has He demonstrated that characteristic to us. Think about the death of our savior. God the Father gave His Son for us, so there might be a way that we could be forgiven, so that we could be justified before him, so that we can come back into a right relationship with him. You know, God made a way, and so ultimately, it cost the Father the death of His Son and so He demonstrated, not only that He was merciful, but that God loves mercy. And now He's looking for that same trait in us.

In fact, there's a wonderful section of scripture in the book of James, James 3 deals quite a bit with this aspect of the kind of behavior that God is looking for when it comes to being merciful and really loving mercy. And in James 3:13, it has the context of this idea. James writes "Who's wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom." And so, with this idea, he begins to get in the whole series of aspects that should be demonstrated in our life and he talks about the opposite. "If you don't love mercy and really seek it, He says, what the sense instead is earthy, sensual, and demonic." That's in verse 15 (James 3:15) that just before that He says, "There's envy and self-seeking and lying against the truth." You see all of those things work against both love and mercy. But ultimately, we're putting on God's characteristics and that is what He concludes with in this chapter where He says "The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." 

And so, that's what we need to strive for, to strive, to put on these kinds of characteristic to demonstrate the fact we're striving to live like Christ. So when you think of loving mercy, here's a question we can conclude with that we each can ask ourselves. Ask yourself, how have I demonstrated mercy in my life? We really want to ask ourselves whether we are what God's looking for in a true Christian. That's where we can go to with step number two. Do we really love mercy? Well, let's ask ourselves, how have I demonstrated mercy in my life?

That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.