Justice

Lesson 9: God is a just God.

It wasn't until a year into my walk with Christ that I began to grasp this concept.  I heard the speech, "Accept Jesus into your life because you need him and you're a sinner."  I got that, but that was about it.  I kept thinking to myself, "But why did He have to die? Especially on the cross?  Why?"  And forget about the Old Testament, I had no clue what that was about.  I was honestly told just to read the New Testament because it's all I needed to know.  What a load of CRAP.  Anyone who tells you not to read the Old Testament doesn't understand the importance of it.  The Old Testament explains why Jesus had to come.  It explains His whole purpose, it's His back-story.

I remember the specific time in which I finally began to realize the important of the Old Testament.  I was on a winter retreat at Hume Lake with my church and Danny Strange was speaking on the Prophet Elijah.  Danny Strange said (in summary), "A price had to be paid for our sins, that's why that sacrificed animals in the Old Testament.  But it wasn't enough to pay the price.  God is a just God, that's why He sent Jesus.  So that, our sins could be paid for and we could be forgiven."  If God was only merciful, then there would be no need for Jesus.  Heck, the commandment would be worthless!  Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

As merciful as God is, He is also just and I think a lot of people forget that.  He is the Judge, not us.  "He deserves death because he killed/raped all those women!" or "She deserved to die because she aborted her child/did drugs/etc."  This could quickly turn into a political rant, so I'll just end with this: we all deserve death, but He gives us Jesus. On the flip side, "If God is so loving and merciful, how could he allow bad things to happen to good people?"  That's assuming there's a good person!  Everyone has done wrong and the only person who did no wrong died because of free will and justice.

People love justice, when it's someone else receiving it.  When they're getting disciplined or punished, suddenly we wish for grace.  It cracks me up that people only wish grace for themselves and justice on others.  "Oh, but it's different because there sin is SO much worse than mine."  Guess what?  All sin is the same in God's eyes.  Everyone (myself included) need to start seeing things through the Judges eyes and not the eyes of the world.  Learning that God is a just God is one of the best lessons I learned cause it broadened my eyes to who God is.

Sailor Moon is a perfect example of someone who fights for Justice.  HECK! She even explicitly says that's what she fights for 200 times (get it, once each episode... yeah.)  She fights and "punishes" those who do wrong, but she's also very merciful.  Anyone who repents, she's quick to forgive.  But when if it comes down to it, she will fight the pure evil to protect the rest of the world.

Help me see the world through your eyes, Abba.

~Sailor Star Defender (Alyssa)