When God Guides The Study

WOW! When God guides me to scripture after scripture relating the same subject, even though I wasn't studying that concept, or searching for it it makes me excited, wondering where this is going and what He's trying to show me. I had just read a chapter in a book titled Hard Saying of the Old Testament about Abraham and the demand from God that Abraham sacrifice his son. This is a passage in the bible that I have had struggles with over time and finally came to understand, though I still find it intriguing. I laid the book down, and soon after was searching an online concordance for "love", "unending" or "unending love", thinking nothing at all about what I'd just read.  The VERY first entry for "love" in the NKJ version of Bible Gateway's concordance is Genesis 22:2 and reads:

Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” 

I thought that was interesting, what a coincidence... but what happened next gave me goose bumps. I put in "God's love" and found one of my favorite scriptures because I learned it in a song from a pastor friend. Micah 6:8. I clicked a link to see the verses in context and this is what I read:

 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"

This passage is telling us that even IF we poured out rivers of oil or gave something precious, such as our children in sacrifice it is not pleasing to God. He NEVER required human sacrifice in the first place, only obedience. Also, CAN we do justly? On our own do we love mercy? Do we ever truly walk humbly? The answer is of course, a resounding, "NO." We cannot, we do not, and most of the time we'd rather not even try because we fail so miserably. Thank the Lord that He Himself was the sacrificial atonement in our place.