Winding Down

 

As the Old Year winds down

With one day to go,

We give Almighty God thanks

For His blessings still flow.

 

A roller-coaster year,

I guess one can call it that

But God has been with us all

And this is a fact.

 

We may or may not live

To see the New Year dawn

For many that started this year

Are now gone.

 

A few this very month

Were suddenly whisked away,

Pretty all right in the morning

But didn’t last the day.

 

 

As this year winds down

With just one day to go

This very day could be our last,

We just do not know.

 

It pays to know though

Where we stand with God

And if we have not done as yet,

To answer His call.

 

Say yes to the Lord Christ

That gave his life for us,

Right at this very moment

Say yes to Jesus.

 

So, whether we live or die

We will be the Lord’s

And based on his Holy Word,

He will be ours.

 

As this year winds down

Consider your sin-sick soul,

Confess and receive Jesus now

And he’ll make you whole.

 

The year is winding down

But so too are our days,

Trust God today whate’er betide

And do exactly what he says.

 

Stewart Russell © December 30, 2023

 

What Does the LORD Require?

 

What does the LORD require?

A question we must squarely face,

And having found the answer

Put those requirements in place.

 

Micah 6:6-7

 

Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, 

and bow myself before the high God?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves of a year old?

 

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, 

Or 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?

 

What the answer is not

Is clearly cited in the verses above-

Not the burnt offering of calves and rams

That once appeared to be the hub.

 

The first born for a transgression

Does not the LORD appease,

For never was there such a requirement

For the people of God to heed.

 

Nor the fruit of a sinner’s body

To resolve the sin of his sin-sick soul,

There is nothing that the broken can offer

To make the broken whole.

 

 

What of ten thousand rivers of oil?

Surely this should more than suffice,

Not even all of the world’s wealth

Could be an adequate sacrifice.

 

What then would be the requirement

That the LORD requires of me

If any appeasement offering I could bring

Would be an offering of futility?

 

The next verse supplies the answer

To this otherwise difficult question,

And it is explicitly clear

Just requiring basic comprehension.

 

Micah 6:8

 

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;

And what doth the LORD require of thee,

But to do justly, and to love mercy,

And to walk humbly with thy God?

 

To be just in all our life transactions

And with mercy temper the same,

And in humility walk with our God

Bringing glory to His name.

 

 

God has shown us what is good

In Jesus the finest example,

He, the written and the Living Word

Is there for every people.

 

He indwells the born-again believer

By way of the Holy Spirit

Such that what the LORD requires of us

Can be our daily habit.

 

That is to be just in all our transactions,

Temper our deliberations with mercy

And the third is the vertical axis:

That is to walk with God in humility.

 

 

And now having seen the answer

We must put the requirements in place

So that we can be at peace with one another

While we run our spiritual race.

 

Stewart Russell © March 17, 2021