Christians reside in two worlds—the physical and the spiritual. Each has it’s own demands, offers it’s own challenges and promises it’s own rewards. Regularly, we are confronted with which world will take priority. Though the answer should be easy, often, it isn’t.
In 2025, God expects more of us, and we should expect more of ourselves. The Gospel is universal in its scope but personal in its conviction; it calls us to individual responsibility and accountability; it demands that we rely on a Power greater than ourselves for the strength we need to accomplish the things that He expects of us (Philippians 4:13). And when we fail to make the Gospel the priority of our living, then we fall short of God’s expectation.
God expects us to act with fairness, honesty and integrity. Justice involves the sense of a standard of equality among people. We’re expected to treat all people the same. Regardless of their race, academic or socio-economic status, past mistakes, present maladies. We are to treat all people the same—with fairness, honestly and integrity. How we treat people says much more about us than it does about them. God expects us to show people, through our treatment of them, that He loves them. And when we fail to love people, when we fail to treat people justly, we fall short of God’s expectation.
God expects us to fill our hearts with compassion and kindness toward one another. The word that Micah uses here implies a covenant relationship. As we are in covenant with God, benefiting from His grace, we are responsible for showing kindness that mirrors the kindness that God has shown us. The requirement is not that we have mercy, but that we love mercy. When we love mercy, then we won’t do acts of kindness from a sense of obedience or compulsion, but we will do them out of a heart of genuine love.
This is what God expects from us, and it should be our desire to live up to God’s expectation.
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