#DailyDevotion What’s Your Beef With The LORD?
Micah 6 Listen now, to what the LORD is saying: “Get up, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear you. 2Hear the LORD’s case, you mountains, and you enduring foundations of the earth, because the LORD is presenting His case against His people and is arguing with Israel. 3My people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against Me. I took you out of Egypt, freed you from the place where you were slaves; and I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to lead you. 5My people, please remember what Balak king of Moab planned, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you will know the righteous things the LORD has done.”
It’s a good thing I’m not God the LORD. I don’t think I’d have as much patience with them as he does his people or the world. You know that if we were in charge of things we would have wiped out the whole lot of us and just started afresh. Even with the time the LORD wiped out all flesh, he still kept eight people and had mercy on our race that we would continue.
Here the LORD is being patient with Israel…again and in particularly Judah. Israel and Judah had been rebelling against the LORD and all his ways. They had turned to idols and made sacrifices to them. If they acknowledged the LORD in any way they did it lazily, without intention or thought. They were simply going through the motions without any heart. They did not fear, love and trust in the LORD their God.
Yet here is the LORD trying to make his case to his people to repent, to believe and trust in him. He says, 3“My people, what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against Me.” Indeed what had the LORD done to them and how did he weary them? The LORD recounts their salvation history, how he had delivered them Egypt and how he conquered the kings they met who opposed them. He gave them a way to live that was just in the commandments, precepts and the like. Yet Israel rebelled against the LORD and did not do what he asked of them.
So too many Christians the LORD is patient with. He is also being patient with the world not wanting any to perish but that all would repent and believe in him, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world to deliver it, not from the Egyptians but from the power of Satan, the spirits of the air, from our sin and from its consequences. He does so by obeying his Father in heaven in everything he had given Adam to do. He does so by doing everything the LORD had given Israel to do. Finally, he fulfills the sacrifices of the Law and makes atonement for the sin of the world, for your sins and for my sins and for everyone’s sins.
The LORD simply asks us to trust in his son Jesus Christ has done these things for us. He asks us to flee from our sins which are the fruits of unbelief and to live our lives trusting he cares for us and will do for us what is necessary and to give us whatever is necessary to live our lives. We are called as his people to love him and to love one another. Yet like the Israelites we often treat him with contempt and don’t trust him, turning from him to the world and its powers. Feel free to make your case against the Lord your God, Jesus Christ but in doing so you will only condemn yourself. Trust Jesus instead.
Heavenly Father, you have been patient with us sending us your son Jesus Christ to deliver us. Grant us faith to believe in him and live lives worthy of your calling. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.