To think we will get by with judging others carelessly is a huge mistake.  To seek unjust ways with hidden personal agendas will not go well for us.  To seek notoriety and fame as a judge will not please God who is the One and Only fit to judge is misguided thinking that comes from evil. To judge while seeking what we can get in return for the verdict while looking down on those who need justice with mercy the most is sin and will boomerang back on the one who administered unwise judgements. God spoke through Micah, one of His prophets of old, and told us His requirements for living a just life.  A just life is a life in relationship with God not a ritual to perform. God sees the heart. There is nothing we can or should do to change God but we can certainly surrender to God and allow Him to change us! 

To be more like God in every way it begins with a “heart transplant”, exchanging our weak, sick evil hearts for God’s perfect loving heart of mercy and grace. Great relationships are built to last with God and others when we surrender to this heart transplant!  Micah teaches a sinful Israel;

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
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 6:6-8

“To walk humbly with God” is the definition of a beautiful, intimate, growing relationship with God!

Micah knew that sacrifices were outward expressions of inner faith and trust. What God desired most of all was for Israel to relate to him in a heartfelt, personal way—not just in some superficial, ritualistic fashion. So, he warned God’s people with definitions of justice, mercy, delivered with the grace of God.  The Psalmist today is singing of unjust, cruel judges who need God’s hand of righteousness and judgement placed upon them as only He can do.

Psalm 82, The Message

God calls the judges into his courtroom,
    he puts all the judges in the dock.

^2-4 “Enough! You’ve corrupted justice long enough,
    you’ve let the wicked get away with murder.
You’re here to defend the defenseless,
    to make sure that underdogs get a fair break;
Your job is to stand up for the powerless,
    and prosecute all those who exploit them.”

⁵ Ignorant judges! Head-in-the-sand judges!
    They haven’t a clue to what’s going on.
And now everything’s falling apart,
    the world’s coming unglued.

^6-7 “I appointed you judges, each one of you,
    deputies of the High God,
But you’ve betrayed your commission
    and now you’re stripped of your rank, busted.”

⁸ O God, give them what they’ve got coming!
    You’ve got the whole world in your hands!

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, writes Paul.  (Romans 3:23)

We judge.  We like to judge.  It’s a human habit.  Admit it. When a new person walks into the room, our minds automatically begin to “size them up” by how they carry themselves, what they wear, the words they say,  where they are from because of their accent, all while judging their facial expressions when we talk with them!  Yes, we are judges who daily and easily presume and assume how we feel about a person in the first few minutes of meeting. 

Every person as a story and we don’t know that story.  We have a story.  They don’t know our story.  All our stories have molded and shaped us to be who we are today. 

As His created, God knows us by name, knows our stories, and guided our stories with a such a great, unchanging, relentless, unchanging love that it is hard to wrap our minds around it.  And get this; God knew you and I as sinners but saw us a redeemable!  While we were sinners; God sent His Son to remove our sins by dying in our place of punishment for our sins.  (John 3:16-17) While the world jeers at us and calls us by what we have done; God calls us His beloved Child who bears His Name forever in relationship to Him! When we repent of all that is not of God such as hate, bitterness, judging, condemning, envy, jealousy, arrogant pride, sexual misconduct, and everything else not of God in the Name of Jesus; we become joint heirs with Jesus!  Crazy, right!?

Jesus was sent by God to do what we could not do—be the perfect without sin sacrifice to pay our debt and set us free which removed our sin as far as the east is from the west!  When God looks at us; His first thought is Love! He sees redemption not condemnation.  Evil calls us by our sin; God calls by our name—redeemed child of God. 

God will never look into the eyes of a person He does not love!  So, who are we to judge?

Even as the psalmist pleads with God to rid society of evil judges; it is not God’s desire that anyone perish but all might be saved. (2 Peter 3:9) But God will do what needs to be done to protect those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. (2 Chronicles 16:9)

These judges did not act justly or love mercy and they walked in defiance of God’s will (Micah 6:8). The pronoun “you” in verse 2 is plural, for the Lord is addressing all the guilty judges. They championed the causes of the guilty because they were bribed, and they failed to care for the orphans and widows. The judges chosen by God were disobedient to God and as a result would be judge by God.

Warren Wiersbe comments;

“The priests and Levites (God’s judges) did not always do their jobs well, and the common people did not know the law well enough to defend themselves. ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge’ (Hosea 4:6). When the law of God is ignored or disobeyed, this shakes and threatens the very foundations of society, for God’s moral law is the standard by which man’s laws must be judged.” –Wiersbe Study Bible

God’s Word—still relevant and applicable today!  When the Lord comes to judge the earth, no one will escape, and His sentence will be just. (Skip to the end of the Book for this truth!) Asaph’s prayer echoes the church’s prayer: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” taught by Jesus when His disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray.  (Matthew 6:10). 

Pray for all those in authority over us that they would submit to God and His Ways.  Ask God to protect those in positions of government as they are tempted daily.

Lord,

Thank you for leading, teaching, convicting, correcting us with care, while compelling us to be more like you in every way.  But as you know, we need your help every hour of every day. Thank you for cleansing our hearts, renewing and transforming our thinking, refreshing our souls with YOUR tender new mercies to extend to others while restoring the joy of your salvation at work continually within us.  This is my story, this is my song.  It’s all about you in us and us in you.

In Jesus Name, Amen