Walk humbly with God

Micah 6:8 (ESV)

8 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?

This verse is a response to the previous verses which said, “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression?” God Himself has told man what is right and good and yet there are those who believe they can purchase their pardon from sin by offering back to God what God has given them. What God requires is that we must act justly as God justly deals with us. We must show love and kindness to others just as God has done with us by offering mercy and grace through our Savior Jesus Christ. Finally we must humble ourselves by conforming ourselves to the will of God and abide by His will and follow Him in obedience that we might walk comfortably with God.

Bill White is outreach pastor at Emmanuel Reformed Church in Paramount, California. He shared this story, “I recently took a 45-minute drive in an old, beat-up van with a guy I barely know. Along the way we ended up talking about Jesus and whether this man would give his life to Christ. His response to me laid out humanity's resistance to the gospel with striking clarity. He said, "My biggest problem is pride. I can't humble myself. And you wanna know the reason I can't give up my pride?" He leaned up onto the steering wheel and paused for effect. "Because it's brought me so far."

I couldn't believe my ears. I knew that his pride had brought nothing but great pain. It was all he held onto while growing up in gangs—while his father died of a drug overdose and his mother was in the mafia. I knew that this self-made man beat his wife regularly, that he was unemployed, that he had just gotten out of prison. In fact, I found out a week later that he was on his way back into prison!

In a separate conversation, his wife told me that his young daughters are terrified of him, that he is an alcoholic, and that she is planning to leave him. She even told me that the old van he was driving was going to be repossessed in a week.

Yet despite all our differences, I couldn't help but notice that in some ways, this guy and I are similar. I struggle to lay down my pride, because it's brought me so far—or so I think. What it's really brought both him and me—and you, no doubt—is pain, isolation, and ruined relationships.”

Micah asks are we humbly walking with God. If we are holding onto pride the answer may be no -- for in order to have humility we must let go of pride.