The God Of Justice

We may not always appreciate it but Yahweh is the God of justice. That means that he rewards the good and punishes the bad. He doesn't fudge the lines between what is good and evil. He also does not excuse the evil for what good he may find in a person. If you lie you are evil even if you just gave a $1000 to some charity or helped an elderly lady cross the street.

Yahweh is also everywhere at once and knows everything. He doesn't just judge our actions but also our heart. He knows our motivation for doing what we do. This is wonderful when we have good intentions but not so good when the good we do comes from a wrong motivation. How can you protect or defend yourself from such a God? We cannot afford to forget he is the God of justice:

Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. (Leviticus 26:21)

Praise the Lord because he is also the God who desires restoration and reconciliation over justice. He will punish us for our rebellious ways if we do not repent but if we repent he joyfully forgives us of all things, and that grace abounds in our life going forward. We do not need to fear his punishment as we seek a deeper relationship with him and pour our love into him. We are now his and he has forgiven past, present and future. Oh, what praise is due him.

Everyone born on this planet come from the same root; all of us were enemies of Yahweh due to our sin, our rebellious ways. It is the state we were born into because man's actions warped Yahweh's plans from the very beginning. It is a state that we had no hope of escaping because our relationship with our Creator was broken and we had no means to repair it. But he did.

Our path was not a good one, heading toward the justice of our Creator, the judgement against our rebellion. We had no means of turning to the right or left, we did not have that power. Hell awaited us. This was not Yahweh's fault because it was we who had rebelled against him, and his character of justice demanded punishment. But his character of love, mercy, forgiveness and grace found a way to offer reconciliation to his enemies. Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ he opened the door to reconciliation and restoration, but the choice was still left to us:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

Jesus said that he who has been forgiven much will love much. I remind you of this because Yahweh knows our heart, our motivation, our desires. He knows if we are sincere about Jesus or just being religious. He knows if we are mocking him by using the right words while filled with evil thoughts. He knows if we are conforming to the acceptable instead of being transformed by the incredible. It matters to him, the God of justice.

Today let's examine our hearts and test ourselves to know that our love for Jesus is sincere. Let us make sure that we are not saying we are Christian to please family and friends without even knowing Jesus. Let us make sure that we are not wearing a title simply because it is what we were born into and we don't know any different. Let us make sure that we understand our history with Yahweh, who he is, what he has done for us and what he offers, so that we can make the decision to accept it and be reconciled to him. It is far better to know him as the God of mercy and grace than as the God of justice.