Prophet Micah asks a question that every generation of believers must answer for itself: what does the Lord actually want from us? Not what we assume He wants, not what tradition has told us He wants — but what He Himself has already told us plainly.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8 (NIV)
God is not hiding what is good from us. He has already made it known. Yet we keep behaving as though we are still waiting to find out, chasing after every “good” of our own making while quietly ignoring the one He has already spoken about. Even after knowing this, we do not walk humbly with our God. Like the Israelites who raised their voices against Moses in the wilderness, we too raise our voices against God every day — grumbling, complaining, questioning His ways. Walking humbly with Him has become difficult for us.
We are also selective with mercy. We want mercy for ourselves — when we are the ones who have failed, we plead for grace. But when someone else needs that same mercy from us, we withhold it. We hold on to grudges, and some of us even pray for God to repay the very people who have wronged us. Yet the truth is that whether we show mercy or intend to take revenge, God’s grace does not run out where sin increases — rather it increases all the more.
But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.
Romans 5:20 (NIV)
Redefining “Good” — What We Often Get Wrong
We want justice when it favours us, but when justice would work against us, we no longer want it. We ask for mercy to be extended to us but are unwilling to extend it to others. James takes this same idea and sharpens it into a warning.
If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
James 4:17 (NIV)
Micah tells us what is good and James tells us that knowing it and still failing to do it is itself sin. So the question this raises for each of us is uncomfortable but necessary: how many times do we know exactly what is good, and still choose not to do it? Most of us already have an idea of what “doing good” looks like. We think of helping others, giving to the poor, supporting missionaries and pastors, giving beyond the tithe, feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, and caring for the sick. These are the things we point to and call good works.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:16 (NIV)
We often lean on verses like this one, and on Jesus’ words that whatever we have done for the least of these, we have done for Him, and we build our whole definition of “good” around acts of service and generosity. There is nothing wrong with these acts themselves — but this is not actually what the LORD is pointing to when He tells us what is good.
The good that pleases God is not, at its core, a list of charitable deeds. It is remaining with Him — staying connected to Him at all times, in hardship, in sickness, in every difficult period of our life, not only when things are going well. This is because our righteousness is not something we generate through our own effort; it comes from the righteousness of Christ, received by faith. If we walk away from Christ, that righteousness walks away with Him.
So the good we are called to do is simply this: to stay with God at all times, trusting that everything happening in our lives comes from His hand — not “maybe” He did this, not “perhaps” He healed me, but a settled confidence that He is at work in everything, and a refusal to walk away from Him regardless of the circumstance. The moment we drift from Him, evil begins to take root — in our words, in our actions, in every part of our lives.
Does Doing Good Please God?
Cornelius is a helpful example here (Acts 10). Scripture describes him as a devout man whose good deeds and prayers went up as a memorial offering before God, and because of this, God sent an angel to him. But it would be a mistake to conclude that his good works were what saved him. If Cornelius had died trusting only in his own good deeds, he would not have received eternal life. That is precisely why God did not stop at commending him — He immediately sent for Peter, so that Cornelius could hear that his righteousness would come only through Jesus Christ, not through anything he himself had done.
We fall into the same misunderstanding today. We sometimes assume that God is pleased with us because of the good works we do. But God is not pleased by our good works in themselves — He is pleased when we remain joined to Him at all times. That is our true good.
Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
John 15:4 (NIV)
Good Works as a Natural Overflow, not a Transaction
Before we received grace, some of us tried to earn merit — going on pilgrimages, bathing in sacred rivers, giving in order to accumulate spiritual credit. Once our sins have already been forgiven through Christ, we must not quietly slip back into that same mindset — supporting missions, giving to pastors, tithing generously, helping every poor person we meet — while, underneath it all, still trying to earn something from God that has already been freely given to us.
Helping someone, speaking well of others, giving clothes or food, caring for the sick — these are simply ordinary things that any person will naturally do. They are not extraordinary achievements meant to impress heaven; they are the normal, everyday overflow of being God’s child. Jesus Himself explained this with the following illustration:
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Matthew 7:18-20 (NIV)
The real problem arises when this becomes forced — when we do good only so that people will call us a good person, so that a crowd will gather at our funeral, so that our name will be remembered well after we have gone. If our good deeds are driven by wanting recognition rather than flowing naturally from staying close to God, we have already missed the point of what is good.
The Sabbath and a Life Set Apart
Blessed is the one who does this — the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hand from doing any evil.
Isaiah 56:2 (NIV)
The original Sabbath ran from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and Saturday remained the Sabbath under the old covenant. Today, most believers observe Sunday instead — but the deeper issue is not which day we set apart, it is what we have done with the day we have set apart. Many of us treat Sunday the way the Sabbath itself was once treated — as a box to be checked rather than a day that reflects a life fully devoted to God. We shut ourselves inside on Sunday, go to church, and consider our obligation fulfilled, while the rest of the week carries no real conversation with God, no real obedience to His word, no pursuit of His truth.
People sit in church Sunday after Sunday without truly listening, without being changed, wondering why we are not transformed, why our situation has not improved — not realising that a single hour on a single day was never meant to substitute for a life walked with Him. With the upkeep of justice and mercy, God asks us to keep the Sabbath without desecrating it. Believers misunderstood this as keeping aside Sundays as the Old Testament Sabbaths. But the deeper meaning is that when we learn to walk with God all the time, Sunday is not going to be a special day to be with God. Hence, the message is that for a follower of Jesus, Sunday is just like any other day, and we should continue to rely on God’s loving justice and mercy on Sundays as well.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus mentioned a priest passing by the injured Samaritan, probably because he was going to the temple, and he did not want to delay or miss it. Believers are being instructed to attend the service at any cost by the church leaders. Even if someone is sick at home, other members are encouraged to come to church, coaxing that their gesture of honouring Sunday would heal their loved one. Many young people are discouraged from attending job interviews or competitive exams on Sundays, quoting the example of many renowned players who skipped finals because they fell on Sundays.
Jesus exposed the blunders of these kinds of wrong teachings of the church leaders by healing a crippled woman inside the synagogue. She had been afflicted with this disease for eighteen years. While she had been healed from the disease that had crippled her for eighteen years, the synagogue leader got angry and strictly instructed the congregants not to be healed on the Sabbath day. This kind of ritual obviously survives in our days, as people give importance to Sundays more than to God. Jesus answered the synagogue leader with the following illustration:
The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?
Luke 13:15 (NIV)
In today’s context the question is this, while the church leaders are insisting the healthy members of a family to attend the Sunday service without fail, leaving the sick behind at the house, could they ask a mother to leave the ailing infant behind at home and come to the church. Sometimes, we do injustice to our family members or fellow believers, in the pretext of giving importance to go to the church without fail, while failing to show justice and mercy. God had conveyed this message through prophet Isaiah, if you are doing justice and show mercy for the six days in a week, let the Sunday services not stop you from doing that even on Sundays.
What God is asking of us is not devotion confined to Sunday, but devotion carried through every single day — searching His word daily, seeking the truth that sets us free, walking with Him not because it is the day to go to church, but because we are His.
The Jordan Valley 
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