To do righteousness and justice
Is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.—Proverb 21:3
Beloved…God sees our hearts and desires that they be wholly devoted to Him. Our outward acts of obedience and worship are meaningless and abhorrent when the heart behind them is empty and hypocritical. God wants all that we do and say to be motivated by the love that His Spirit has shed abroad in our heart.
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
Right behavior is produced by a heart that is right with God. This is the heart Jesus describes in Matthew 22…
34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"
37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
Love is of God. Love fulfills the law.
