What Does the Lord Require?

"With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  (Micah 6:6-8, ESV)

Micah’s short and quick response here makes it obvious that they should have known the answer to this one.  So simple and even simpler now from the NT point of view because Jesus demonstrated it moment by moment.  Psalm 85 tells us that righteousness goes before Him and His footsteps are our pathway.  My Beloved wants me...He wants my heart.  He desires the pre-eminence in my life.  I can bring nothing to Him acceptable except  empty hands and a heart filled with love and gratitude for what He has done for me.  When my heart is committed my actions will follow.  

And Samuel said, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.  (1 Samuel 15:22, ESV)

"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, (Deuteronomy 10:12, ESV)

And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40, ESV)

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.  (Isaiah 57:15, ESV)