The Bible contains many brief instructions concerning the conduct which God, the Father of Jesus Christ, both expects and demands of his followers. One of these is given to us in Micah 6:8, 'He has showed you, O man 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.'

We have been shown (so there is no excuse of ignorance) both what is good and also what God requires of us.

1. TO ACT JUSTLY (Note justice comes before love!)

In order to ACT justly we must first THINK justly. Those of us who went to the polls on March 8th will have voted either for the Barisan National or the opposition. We may be tempted to think that God is on the side for which we voted and that fellow Christians who voted differently from us were, in fact, out of tune with God's will. Unfortunately, in the days ahead, God will be able to detect both justice and injustice in the thinking and actions of all political parties.

We ourselves are called upon to think and act justly in all areas of our lives. Some of these areas include our homes (how do we treat our domestic workers?), our workplace and our church/ political involvement.

2. TO LOVE MERCY

God's command for us 'to love mercy' is given because he himself has shown mercy to us. Our sins have been forgiven and we are His children by adoption solely because of God's mercy.

In the political arena, how do we react when there are divisions or scandals in the political parties for which we did not vote? 'POLITICIAN IN SEXUAL (OR FINANCIAL) SCANDAL' are the headlines of all the daily papers. Do we gloatingly inform our friends (by word of mouth, SMS or email) 'I told you so. I never trusted that person.'? We would do well to remember that 'but for the grace of God', we ourselves might be in that person's shoes. When someone is in the headlines for the wrong reasons, it is our duty to pray that God will have mercy on them, just as he does on us. There must be no room in the lives of Christians (who are still sinners saved by grace) for rejoicing, when those with whom we may disagree politically are found guilty of wrongdoing. We must love mercy.

3. TO WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD

There are two sides of the coin to the word 'Power' - 'Ability' (Greek DUNAMOS) and 'Authority' (Greek EXOUSIA). All of us are in some sense 'in authority'. This is especially true for those who have recently been elected either to parliament or to state assemblies. The saying 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' has been proved to be true. Therefore these politicians are in great moral danger and they will always be faced with the temptation to become corrupt. We must pray that they will walk humbly. For those who are Christians we can pray that they, and also we ourselves, will keep our eyes fixed on Jesus Christ who 'humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross'. (See Philippians 2: 1-11).

'To act justly', 'to love mercy', 'to walk humbly with your God'. May MICAH MANDATE help us to understand and practise what God has shown us to be good and what he requires of us.

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