JESUS IN MICAH:
Destiny Overpowers History
Jesus is revealed in Micah through an amazing prophecy spoken 700 years before Jesus would come.
Micah 5:2 You, O Bethlehem are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf. NIV
Matthew 2:1 Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. NIV
Micah brought a message of judgment because of Israel’s disobedience. If you make enough bad decisions you don’t even need a devil to ruin your life.
Micah’s message came in 3 waves and each began with the challenge to hear what God was saying! (1:2; 3:1; 6:1). All three times he moves from consequences of disobedience to hope in God’s restoring power.
Prophets use words to rebuild. They arrive on the scene of ruins and spiritual disorder. With their words they restore what the enemy has taken away from God’s people!
Prophets are conversationally empowered by God. Their words are God-energized and God-passionate. As they begin to speak we find ourselves in the presence of God experiencing the power of God reconstructing our lives.
Truth problems are the true problems behind our issues.
Don’t just believe everything you think.
Stop letting temptation frustrate you. Jesus was tempted but without sin. Temptation is not a sin.
The Bible never says we fall into sin. It does say we fall into temptation. It’s when we embrace temptation that we then start strategically planning our sin.
Micah 2:1 “Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it.” NIV
Remember Jesus was tempted in every way..yet was without sin - Heb 4:15. Every single time Jesus was tempted He turned to the Father instead of the sin. He stands with us today to lead us into these great places of victory!
Micah 2:13 Your leader will break out and lead you out of exile, out through the gates of the enemy cities, back to your own land. Your king will lead you; the LORD himself will guide you." NLT
Both words darkness and ignorance come from the same origin. In the same way light and knowledge come from the same origin. The enemy functions in places of ignorance in our lives. Any area of our lives that doesn’t have hope is under the influence of a lie. To stop defeating ourselves we must stop deceiving ourselves.
Jesus is here to break us out of wrong ways of thinking and lead us in to right ways of thinking. Yes we’ve made mistakes but because we know his heart we watch in hopeful expectation anticipating this Jesus will come not because we are so lovable but because he is so loving!
Micah 7:7-8 “But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” NIV
Because of Jesus we can be defined by our destiny rather than our history. With Jesus destiny outweighs history, blessing outweighs burden, purpose outweighs pain, crown outweighs the cross, hope outweighs hardships & grace outweighs shame! Do not gloat!
Stop judging yourself by your past. You don’t live there anymore. We are enlightened and enriched by God to enrich the lives of others.
My history is not my destiny. This is why it doesn't bother me when people say they knew me when. Unless U know me now U don't know me well.
We must focus on God’s perspective to enlarge us beyond the borders of our circumstances or our destiny remains in confined spaces.
GP4RL: Purpose to be inspired by God every day this week. #Turnthepage
GOING DEEPER:
The Message Bible Introduction to Micah - Prophets use words to remake the world. The world - heaven and earth, men and women, animals and birds - was made in the first place by God's Word. Prophets, arriving on the scene and finding that world in ruins, finding a world of moral rubble and spiritual disorder, take up the work of words again to rebuild what human disobedience and mistrust demolished. These prophets learn their speech from God. Their words are God-grounded, God-energized, God-passionate. As their words enter the language of our communities, men and women find themselves in the presence of God, who enters the mess of human sin to rebuke and renew.
Left to ourselves we turn God into an object, something we can deal with, some thing we can use to our benefit, whether that thing is a feeling or an idea or an image. Prophets scorn all that stuff. They train us to respond to God's presence and voice.
Micah, the final member of that powerful quartet of writing prophets who burst on the world scene in the eighth century B.C. (Isaiah, Hosea, and Am were the others), like virtually all his fellow prophets - those charged with keeping people alive to God and alert to listening to the voice of God - was a master of metaphor. This means that he used words not simply to define or identify what can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted, but to plunge us into a world of presence. To experience presence is to enter that far larger world of reality that our sensory experiences point to but cannot describe - the realities of love and compassion, justice and faithfulness, sin and evil ... and God. Mostly God. The realities that are Word-evoked are where most of the world's action takes place. There are no “mere words.”
From Chuck Swindoll’s Insight For Living:
Who wrote the book?
The prophet Micah identified himself by his hometown, called Moresheth Gath, which sat near the border of Philistia and Judah about twenty-five miles southwest of Jerusalem. Dwelling in a largely agricultural part of the country, Micah lived outside the governmental centers of power in his nation, leading to his strong concern for the lowly and less fortunate of society—the lame, the outcasts, and the afflicted (Micah 4:6). Therefore, Micah directed much of his prophecy toward the powerful leaders of Samaria and Jerusalem, the capital cities of Israel and Judah, respectively (1:1).
Where are we?
As a contemporary of Isaiah and Hosea, Micah prophesied during the momentous years surrounding the tragic fall of Israel to the Assyrian Empire (722 BC), an event he also predicted (Micah 1:6). Micah stated in his introduction to the book that he prophesied during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in Judah, failing to mention the simultaneous string of dishonorable kings that closed out the northern kingdom of Israel.
During this period, while Israel was imploding from the effects of evil and unfaithful leadership, Judah seemed on a roller-coaster ride—ascending to the heights of its destiny in one generation, only to fall into the doldrums in another. In Judah at this time, good kings and evil kings alternated with each other, a pattern seen in the reigns of Jotham (good, 2 Kings 15:32–34); Ahaz (evil, 2 Kings 16:1–4); and Hezekiah (good, 2 Kings 18:1–7).
Why is Micah so important?
The book of Micah provides one of the most significant prophecies of Jesus Christ’s birth in all the Old Testament, pointing some seven hundred years before Christ’s birth to His birthplace of Bethlehem and to His eternal nature (Micah 5:2).
Surrounding Micah’s prophecy of Jesus’s birth is one of the most lucid pictures of the world’s future under the reign of the Prince of Peace (5:5). This future kingdom, which scholars call the millennial kingdom, will be characterized by the presence of many nations living with one another in peace and security (4:3–4) and coming to Jerusalem to worship the reigning king, that is, Jesus Himself (4:2). Because these events have not yet occurred, we look forward to the millennial kingdom at some undetermined time in the future.
What's the big idea?
Much of Micah’s book revolves around two significant predictions: one of judgment on Israel and Judah (Micah 1:1–3:12), the other of the restoration of God’s people in the millennial kingdom (4:1–5:15). Judgment and restoration inspire fear and hope, two ideas wrapped up in the final sequence of Micah’s prophecy, a courtroom scene in which God’s people stand trial before their Creator for turning away from Him and from others (6:1–7:20). In this sequence, God reminds the people of His good works on their behalf, how He cared for them while they cared only for themselves. But rather than leave God’s people with the fear and sting of judgment, the book of Micah concludes with the prophet’s call on the Lord as his only source of salvation and mercy (7:7), pointing the people toward an everlasting hope in their everlasting God.
How do I apply this?
Much of Micah’s indictment against Israel and Judah involves these nations’ injustice toward the lowly—unjust business dealings, robbery, mistreatment of women and children, and a government that lived in luxury off the hard work of its nation’s people.
Where does the injustice dwell in your own life? Who are the lowly in your life? Do you need a call toward repentance, like the people of Israel and Judah did?
Micah’s impassioned plea for God’s chosen people to repent will cut many of us to the quick. Most of us don’t decide daily to cut people down or find ways to carry out injustice. Instead, we do it out of habit. Let’s allow the words of Micah to break us out of our apathy about extending justice and kindness to others and press on toward a world that better resembles the harmonious millennial kingdom to come.
Let’s determine to live as God desires—“to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).