WHERE LOVE AND JUSTICE MEET
Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness;
O Lord, revive me according to Your justice.
O Lord, revive me according to Your justice.
Psalm 119:149
TAKING IT IN
Have your thoughts ever gotten the best of you in the middle of the night, causing you to toss and turn? Maybe there were situations that concerned you or a problem you were seeking answers for. You may have tossed and turned for hours before recognizing that this might be a good time to pray.
We find the author of our psalm encountering a sleepless night and possibly wrestling with the reality that the wicked who opposed him were drawing nearer and becoming more of a threat to him. He is not tossing and turning, but praying. His prayer indicates that he is deeply acquainted with the attributes of God. He asks for his appeal to be heard according to the lovingkindness of God, yet his cry to be revived is according to God’s justice.
Let me ask you this:
Have you ever wrestled with the idea of God’s love and His justice?
It is certainly something that could keep us awake at night.
Love and justice certainly require a mind that is ready to contemplate the deep things of God. Ravi Zacharias comments:
In the cross alone are integrated love and justice, the twin foundations upon which we may build our moral and spiritual home, individually and nationally. It is theoretically and practically impossible to build any community apart from love and justice. If only one of these two is focused upon, an inevitable extremism and perversion follow. Throughout history, mankind has shouted its ideals of liberty, equality and justice; yet the ideologies that have risen, supposedly in the pursuit of human progress, have left in their wake some very dastardly experiments that echo with the whimpering sounds of man, like a trapped animal. Rising above the cry of liberty, equality and justice is the more rending plea for that sense of belonging we call love. And the love unbounded by any sense of right or wrong is not love but self-centeredness and autocracy. In the cross of Jesus Christ, the demands of the law were satisfied, and the generosity of love was expressed.
MAKING IT MEANINGFUL
In Hosea 12:6 (ESV) the prophet cried, “Hold fast to love and justice”.
When we are on the “receiving”end of love and justice and they are working for our benefit, it is easy to champion God’s cause. But when we are asked to be on the “giving” end of this equation, it often becomes more difficult.
We want to love with qualificationand are much less worried about justice when we are in the wrong. There are many “walking wounded” in the Body of Christ and if we are to experience revival we must come to a deeper understanding of God’s love and justice, a deeper understanding of the cross.
This word justice is derived from the Hebrew word “mishpat” which means “judgment”.
The term refers to God’s verdicts, ordinances and revelations of God’s will. What is important to recognize here is that the judgments of God must be seen as “just” even when we don’t understand. Our consent must be that God is all wise and knows exactly how to deal with mankind. Scripture teaches us that if we learn God’s judgments (what He tells us to do or to avoid) we can trust Him in the outcome.
WORKING IT INTO MY HEART
Romans 12:9-21 has been described as the passage where “the rubber meets the road” in the Christian life. Practically it gives us the way to live out love and justice in our daily lives.
Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him If he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
There is no way possible to overcome evil with good except by bringing evil to the cross. We bring our unforgiveness, our vengeance, and our enemies, those who persecute us, our hurts and pain… and at the cross we ask God to give us love.
Romans 3:25-26 reminds us that the justice we deserved was death, but God loved us while we were yet sinners and sent His Son for you and for me.
Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
So what does the Lord require of you and me as we seek to be revived?
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? Micah 6:8
The key to revival is to walk humbly with our God.
The enemies of bitterness, unforgiveness, even our disappointments and pain can come against the revival that we long for. We may feel “justified” in our sin, we may even “demand” our rights but in case we have forgotten…
Our rights have been purchased; we were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:20) and it was costly. Our freedom, our forgiveness, our very lives were purchased by the blood of Christ. God loved you enough to send His Son to take your place, His love and justice met at the cross.
May we sincerely pray, like the Psalmist,
“Oh LORD, revive me according to your justice”
May we also be willing to lay down everything at the cross, trusting that God in His lovingkindness will answer.