{"id":9079,"date":"2020-05-04T20:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T03:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=9079"},"modified":"2020-05-05T00:32:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T07:32:13","slug":"micah_3_1-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/micah_3_1-12\/","title":{"rendered":"So Much Depends on Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Micah 3:1-12 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Micah 3:1-12.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Micah 3:1-4 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice,
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0you who hate good and love evil; who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones;
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?”
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then they will cry out to the\u00a0LORD, but he will not answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil they have done.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-4: God wants leaders to \u201cembrace justice\u201d (v1), but instead Micah finds that the leaders of Jacob (another name for Israel) \u201chate good and love evil\u201d (v2).\u00a0 Micah uses cannibalistic imagery to describe how Israel\u2019s leaders take advantage of and abuse the people (v3).\u00a0 Micah says that because of their evil ways, the Lord will not listen to them when they cry out (v4).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0God loves justice and expects leaders to embrace justice too.<\/strong>\u00a0 God is so holy that nothing with sin can get near him.\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t expect God to do what you want especially when you\u2019re not doing what He wants.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Micah 3:5-7 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0This is what the\u00a0LORD\u00a0says: “As for the prophets who lead my people astray, if one feeds them, they proclaim ‘peace’; if he does not, they prepare to wage war against him.
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Therefore night will come over you, without visions, and darkness, without divination. The sun will set for the prophets, and the day will go dark for them.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced. They will all cover their faces because there is no answer from God.”
\n<\/em>
\nOn verses 5-7:\u00a0 Here Micah turns his attention specifically to Israel\u2019s false prophets \u201cwho lead my people astray\u201d (v5), who prophesy good for those who bribe them and who prophesy evil for those who refuse to give a bribe (v5).\u00a0 As a result of their money-loving ways, Micah says there will come a day when Israel\u2019s false prophets will be ashamed and disgraced and when they can no longer prophesy or hear from God (v6-7).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0Be careful that you don\u2019t allow the love of money to influence how you use the gifts that God has given you.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Instead of loving money and using people, use money and love people.\u00a0 \u00a0It is difficult to hear from God when you\u2019re obsessed with money.
\n
\nMicah 3:8 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the\u00a0LORD, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin.
\n<\/em>
\nOn verse 8:\u00a0 Micah is filled with power and with the Spirit of the Lord, with a sense of justice and a sense of His strength, to declare to Israel where Israel has gone wrong.\u00a0 What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you have power to serve God in ways that you couldn\u2019t if you were relying on your own strength alone.<\/strong>\u00a0 That is why Paul writes, \u201cKeep on being filled with the Holy Spirit\u201d (Ephesians 5:18).\u00a0 Every day ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with His power.<\/p>\n

Micah 3:9-12 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and distort all that is right;
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with wickedness.
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon theLORD\u00a0and say, “Is not the\u00a0LORD\u00a0among us? No disaster will come upon us.”
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Therefore because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.
\n<\/em>
\nOn verses 9-12:\u00a0 Micah goes after the political leaders, the judges, the priests and the prophets of Israel for on one hand accepting bribes and on the other hand assuming that God is with them and will not do their nation any harm.\u00a0 Micah clarifies that actually these leaders are the biggest reason why their nation will fall.\u00a0 For as John Maxwell says,\u00a0\u201cEverything rises and falls on leadership\u201d<\/strong>.\u00a0 When the leaders are doing right and leading well, the whole nation will eventually be blessed.\u00a0 When the leaders are doing wrong and leading poorly, everyone suffers.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, since You have called all of usto be leaders in our own way, I pray that we would be leaders who embrace justice, who love what is good, who hate what is evil, who aren\u2019t lovers of money but lovers of people, who are filled with Your Holy Spirit to do things we could not do on our own, and who lead others in the right way.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Micah 3:1-12.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Micah 3:1-4 (NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u00a0\u00a0Then I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice,
\n2\u00a0\u00a0you who hate good and love evil; who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones;
\n3\u00a0\u00a0who eat my people’s flesh, strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pan, like flesh for the pot?”
\n4\u00a0\u00a0Then they will cry out to the\u00a0LORD, but he will not answer them. At that time he will hide his face from them because of the evil they have done.<\/p>\n

On verses 1-4: God wants leaders to \u201cembrace justice\u201d (v1), but instead Micah finds that the leaders of Jacob (another name for Israel) \u201chate good and love evil\u201d (v2).\u00a0 Micah uses cannibalistic imagery to describe how Israel\u2019s leaders take advantage of and abuse the people (v3).\u00a0 Micah says that because of their evil ways, the Lord will not listen to them when they cry out (v4).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9079"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9082,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9079\/revisions\/9082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}