Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 242 · August 30
Wherewith Shall I Come
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
How high would you go? A man in Micah 6 does that calculation, starting reasonably. Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Then he raises it: will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Then he goes where no reasonable man should go. Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
Notice what he is answering. The chapter is a lawsuit, the mountains have been called as witnesses, and God opens almost tenderly. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. He asks what he has done wrong, and the answer comes back as a price list. That last item was no figure of speech in his century. Jeremiah had to say of the practice, in God's own voice, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.
The reply corrects the tense before the amount. He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good. Already shown, nothing new arriving. Moses put the same question in the same shape generations earlier: what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him. And Jeremiah, standing in the gate of the temple, denied that the sacrifices had ever been the first thing asked for: I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice.
Work out what your own bid has been. Then find the person who is owed justice or mercy by you specifically, and settle with them before you offer God anything else this month.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 242 is Many Mansions (John 14:2).