April 28, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity; in My faithfulness I will give them their recompense and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the LORD has blessed.” (Isaiah 61.8-9)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

We hear the word “justice” a great deal these days. It rises up not as a new call but a continuing one in the face of the exponential desire for social injustice. Yes, you heard me correctly, the pervasive ideology of the world as it has been for thousands of years is a desire for social injustice. “Social injustice refers to“, and I will use the definition published by the Case Western Reserve University, “the wrongful actions against individuals within society where the unequals are treated equally and the equals are treated unequally. It encompasses various forms of discrimination, inequality and oppression, rooted in social, economic and political structures. (*My comment to this is only to identify that the religious organizations are fitted within the social structure but have due influence on the other two.) Social injustice creates conditions that adversely affect health, deny equal opportunities and violates fundamental human rights.” Having shared that, let me revisit the statement I made first, which is: we hear the word justice in the continuing desire for “social injustice.” Those who feel they are the victims of “social injustice” desire justice be served. However, the means by which “justice” is achieved by them is through the pervasiveness and invasion of further social injustice. Perhaps in simpler terms, it is considered that the only means of gaining justice for one is to pursue injustice for another. The idea of reparations would be a good example. The thought that having certain people, groups and/or organizations to pay for injustices of the past assume that those people, groups or organizations were directly involved in the original injustice and must “pay up” to those who were not the ones originally the victims of injustice. In this ebb and flow of the social, economic and political ideologies and entities between justice and injustice is lost the very foundation of what identifies them both. What is that foundation? It is the “righteousness of God which is God Himself.” The crucifixion itself is both a sign of “justice and injustice” which was necessary to countermand the greatest injustice of all which is sin.

Before you get all worked up, let me reflect on the “injustice” aspect of the crucifixion. That Jesus had to die for the sins of the world, all the people who on earth do dwell and have dwelt and are yet to dwell, is criminal. His life was the picture of innocence. He was perfect righteousness reflecting the will of God in faith, hope and love. He commitment to fulfilling the “law” of God’s justice was shown in the sacrifice of His own life for the sake of all. His innocence covered our guilt. It was and is covered not to mask it. Rather, His innocence answers for the penalty of our sin which is death. His life for our death. He did not deserve to die. In sin, we do not deserve to live. We do live, however, and we will live eternally. However, without His sacrifice and our acceptance of His gift of mercy and grace as the outpouring of God’s forgiveness, our living will be an eternal death. With His sacrifice and our acceptance of it with the desire to live out the spirit and truth of God’s design for all people, we will not die but have everlasting life. That the rule applies to all people everywhere is social justice. We spoke of such justice in the “Year of Jubilee” scriptures from Isaiah which Jesus presented in Nazareth as recorded by Luke. What is beautiful about this descriptor is that all are “poor” in spirit and in truth because Jesus is speaking of Kingdom spirit and truth. Jesus addresses human definition with godly intentions. Such stories as the “Rich Young Ruler” show the challenge of kingdom thinking and human opinion.

In this, we see the justice of the crucifixion because God exacts the prescribed penalty of “self” sacrifice by offering His own Son, just as we remember Abraham being in obedience to offer up Isaac. God provided the appropriate sacrifice which fulfilled all righteousness. He did so just as He did for Adam and Eve in the Garden. God’s justice is pure, holy and righteous altogether. It speaks to each person individually and commands us to listen and obey distinctly. That sin has disturbed our hearing and listening to God’s word and thus facilitates our lack of ability to fulfill it with our own mentality and physicality, is a sign of the injustice of sin. It promotes the lie that we are all different and to be treated differently. Our differences exist in our created purpose by design. That design has always been God’s will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Our failure to promote this spiritual justice only enables the social injustice which is rampant in the world. It is time we hear, listen to and obey God’s plan for justice. It alone promotes life as it is meant to be, redeeming it from the power of sin to condemn and building up the righteous community of faith with hope and love.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free from death. So may we live by the name of Jesus our Christ. AMEN.