There seems to be something hardwired into our brains that makes us want to earn forgiveness, as though for us to fully be able to grasp that we have been forgiven, we need to have done something, anything, to earn that feeling of pardon. Micah prophesied during a time when the children of Israel had focused their worship life on the act of sacrifice, where they believed that following the rites and rituals given through the Law was all that was necessary to be in right relationship with the Almighty.
Unfortunately, this practice gave way to a sense of legalism. This is the view that the more precisely they were able to follow the Law, the more holy that God would hold them to be. Micah sought to reorder the people’s worship life to be focused, not on the act of worship, but rather on a life of worship. This type of life is one that allows us to accept the grace that we have been given through Christ Jesus and to seek to share that same grace with others.
The Lord does not require that we raise up lofty prayers or offer sacrifices for forgiveness, but merely that we act as He has taught us to do. We can see what this form of life is like most clearly through the two-fold command that Jesus gave: to love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. When we seek to live with these commandments at the forefront of our being, we seek to live as God desires.