What does it mean to Act Justly & Love Mercy?

Lessons on justice and love.

Injustice in the time of Micah, an Old Testament prophet, was rampant.

In his pivotal book Woke Church, Dr. Eric Mason says, “The people in Jerusalem had economic wealth, but the people in the countryside or the surrounding areas around Judah were living in poverty. So, Micah called out the governing authority about its responsibility to address the needs of the poor. He challenged the authorities to go beyond the power of privilege to the pavement of people’s lives.”[i] Here is where our new organization, Act July Love Mercy, seeks to live. Not in the palace or the ivory tower, but on the block and in the community. 

Micah called and pleaded with Israel to “know the righteousness of the LORD” (Micah 6:5, NKJV). He then begins to “shine a light on their faulty thinking” by asking a series of questions to the people on how the LORD desires us to approach Him and to know His righteousness. Micah says,

 “6 With what shall I come before the Lord,

And bow myself before the High God?

Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,

With calves a year old?

 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

Ten thousand rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has shown you, O man, what is good;

And what does the Lord require of you

But to do justly,

To love mercy,

And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8, NKJV)

 He uses hyperbole to demonstrate how people try to buy their way out of accountability to God. He points out how God is concerned with not just the “act” of worship but with the substance of our worship; that substance is more than just what we can give to God or do for God. 

 Dr. Mason says, “You can’t give the best offering to offset your accountability, to get God off of your back… God knows you have the money, so money is not really a sacrifice for you.”[ii] Yes, God had commanded His people to bring a burnt offering of calves a year old (Leviticus 1:3; 9:3). We also see King David and King Solomon offering extravagant sacrifices to the LORD. Micah challenges this concept of giving stuff, even a great abundance of our stuff, as the substance of what God requires of us.

Micah tells us that God has “shown you, o man, what is good…” God has already demonstrated to us how to approach Him and how to worship Him, and what He wants from us is to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?”

Micah 6:8 is known as the Great Requirement. We are required to push forward the cause of justice. To “act justly” requires us to take action and promote justice. We must be willing to see where injustice exists and move in that direction. We are required to bring justice wherever injustice exists. God has “shown” and demonstrated this for us in His Son. Jesus rightly understood the requirement in his doing of justice, loving of mercy, and His lifestyle of submission to the will of the Father. 

So, what does it mean to see restoration and redemption through the Great Requirement? We are concerned with this question at Act Justly | Love Mercy. We are concerned with telling black stories because, far too often, these stories are left untold. We are concerned with preparing Black leaders in the church and the community. 

We understand that Black Christians are moving our communities, churches, and nation towards a more just, righteous, and equitable culture. We seek to further this work through our mission of impacting the culture with the values of the Kingdom. These values are love, peacemaking, righteousness, mercy, and justice. 

We desire: to see Black stories told; to see Black Christians equipped with the skills to lead and impact their communities through leadership development and increase awareness of how those communities are designed and affected by racism; to dive deeply into our communities to build lasting relationships and affect meaningful change. 

Will you join us on this mission to impact the culture with the values of the Kingdom? 

Subscribe to the podcast My Black Book Journal here

https://myblackbookjournal.buzzsprout.com/

We look forward to impacting the culture alongside you. 

[i] Mason, Dr. Erice. Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice. (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2018), 131.

[ii] Ibid., 131

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