Are you transacting with God?

What can we bring to the Lord? Should we bring him burnt offerings? Should we bow before God Most High with offerings of yearling calves? Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins? No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:6-8 NLT)

So many times, we seek to 'bring' something to God, offerings of some kind - all because we 'want' something from him. It is as though we have a 'transactional' relationship with him. I will do this if you do that. The moment we try to 'transact' with God is the moment we should realize his favor is not 'bought' with our good deeds. Our good deeds are an outflow of his favor and grace in our lives!

God requires us to do what is right. There is no more 'beneficial' plan for our life than to walk uprightly, leaning into his grace, and allowing wise choices to become the 'norm' for our lives. The moment we think we can 'barter' any other 'solution' to our sinfulness or unwholesome desires is the very moment we need to fall to our knees in repentance. We will never control or regulate the grace of God or his blessings. Only he has that privilege.

Love mercy and walk humbly with your God. When you love something, you have come to 'value' it. You place some measure of 'value' on the very thing that becomes the object of your love. If we love mercy, we place a 'value' on it much higher than anything we can do for ourselves. We realize except for his grace, our sinful state would remain unchanged - our lives would be 'unaltered'. Perhaps the extreme value of grace is its ability to alter our sinful state!

Humility is the outcome of grace being extended where it was least deserved, and maybe even the least expected. When we think we can do something to 'transact' an influx of his grace in our lives, we are no longer approaching him with a humble and contrite heart. We are approaching grace as though it should cost us something. Grace doesn't cost us - sin does! Sin brings consequences. Grace brings blessing. We will do well to approach God's grace as what it is - a gift, unearned, undeserved, and unmatched by anything we could ever do or bring to him. Just sayin!