Pilgrim Traveller

What sort of worship does God want? Is he at all bothered by the form of our worship, or is he looking for something else entirely?

Read: Micah 6: 6-8

God has been reminding the people of all the things he has done for them free of charge, because of his love for them…rescuing them, saving them, giving them good leaders…and then he accuses them of living in ways that completely ignore him and demonstrated how little they loved him.

The people rapidly go into default mode…let’s be more religious! If God is angry let’s do more things to show him how much we love him. For them that meant things like sacrifice (they demonstrate just how far from God they are by suggesting human sacrifice, which they have practiced while worshipping the gods of the surrounding nations). In a church context we might say “let’s improve our worship services and get involved in more church activities”.

God says, “No! Those are superficial actions that mean nothing unless they flow from hearts that are full of “goodness”. It’s not religious activity but better lives that God is looking for. God specifies three areas: doing what’s right or acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with him. These are three things that are notably absent in Judah, where there is corruption not justice, ruthlessness rather than mercy, and people are arrogantly going their own way rather than God’s.

Religious stuff can become a smokescreen behind which we try to hide just how spiritually bankrupt our relationship with God really is.

“to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” 
Justice, mercy, and humility…which one do I struggle most to live out in my everyday life? Why might that be?

How is it that whilst Israel clearly understood that a special ruler, maybe even the promised Messiah, would come from Bethlehem, when he did, they completely missed it?

Read: Micah 5: 2-5

With the benefits of hindsight, these verses instantly remind us of the “O little town of Bethlehem” of the Christmas story.

People living in the time of Micah would also be able to look back and use what they knew of the history of Israel to make sense of these words of prophecy.

Bethlehem was “royal David’s city”, the birthplace of the greatest of Israel’s kings. So, when the prophet speaks of God sending someone to put everything right, they quickly jump to the conclusion that it will be another descendant of King David who will be that king…and Jesus is born into the family of Joseph, who just happens to be a descendant of King David. Unfortunately, the priests and powerful miss that, or choose to overlook it.

Later, when wise men from the East come to King Herod’s palace, looking for a new and special king who has been born, Herod’s priests and teachers had no hesitation quoting Micah 5:2 to clarify the place they should be looking.

You would have thought, with a prophecy as precise as this one, known by all the leading religious people in Israel, that they would realise that they were witnessing the birth and life of the one that all Israel had waited for so long to welcome.

For a variety of reasons, many to do with their own agendas and status, they failed to recognise their Saviour King; as John’s gospel tells us, “He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.” John 1:11.

So here was God, doing something amazing by being born as a man who would live among the people he had created, even specifying the village where he would be born, and everyone missed it (except some wise men from a foreign land and a bunch of disreputable shepherds).

As Paul says in Romans, “God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.”

Think back through your life. Are you aware of the breadcrumb trail that bears witness to the way God was speaking to you, drawing you to himself and equipping you for living for him?

Thank God for his faithfulness and presence in your life.