Good Morning Friends,
God gives us a gracious invitation to drink deep of the joy of life that is right here and right now. But with this spiritual awareness comes a painful diagnosis that may prompt us to dive into the subject a little deeper, meditating on the Lord’s Prayer and the Kingdom to come and the very nature of God’s love and sovereignty. Now I may regret trying to tackle this, for as I am typing now, I am not sure I have any right answers, for carrots and sticks still exist and God will be who God will be. But I ask anyway for I was raised to believe in miracles, and I think we all desire an answer to the challenge of preventing, not just responding to potentially bad things especially when they from time to time look back at us in the mirror. And so, we ask in the hope of a mature understanding, Does Grace And Judgement, Love And Justice Mix In the Divine Mind Prompt Our Forgiveness?
Scripture: Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:1-11 (NRSV)
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 6:7-15 (NRSV)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6 (NRSV)
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:12-14 (NRSV)
“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:16 (NRSV)
I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them. O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him. O fear the Lord, you his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Which of you desires life, and covets many days to enjoy good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord rescues them from them all.
Psalm 34: 4-19 (NRSV)
Message: I guess the “simple” answer to today’s question is that the grace, judgement, love, and justice of God comes together in the mind of Christ on the cross. For God knows we cannot do any of this on our own. As today’s psalm suggests, our love of God has a place, but it is God’s love of us that delivers us from our fears. In the tasting and seeing of this good life it becomes clear that God will take care of His servants, for God is good even good enough to die for us on the cross. For believing in this sacrificing act gives us the best chance to minimize the evil in us and to be part of a change that glorifies God in a changing world. But there is more here to unpack. When we face evil, as Jesus did, we begin to see that God really has insight into the nature of human emotional and social development, and so comes to us where we are in our development. In the stream of Holy History God has interacted with humans to help them behave in a healthy way through a reward and punishment mentality, marketplace exchange rituals and though social conformity, and even a law-and-order judicial system. But these all require little emotional or intellectual interaction on our part. The thinking is removed from the interaction. We just must obey without an internal moral compass even needed. But when we begin doing what is right because we love, or because we are responding to principles of how reality works or we begin to understand God as a friend and actively and intelligently participate in God’s work, our behavior can be trusted for it is not externally motivated but activated from within. All this requires emotional intelligence. It requires us to mature. And the beauty of this is that in this growth God is as concerned with the redemption of individuals as well as the redemption of society. So too for us, having a social agenda without individual transformation is empty.
And So, we believe that God’s purpose for the world will ultimately prevail… that loneliness, pain, poverty, sickness, injustice, even death will no longer mar creation. Our understanding is to change our function in the world. We are to let God speak to us where we are in our development. And here in these teaching moments, notice that there is a difference between believing and supporting justice and doing just acts. Friends, we do justice when we do the right thing whether it is in harmony with our interests or not and that requires us to think about what is moral from the point of view of the mind of Christ. Impossible…well maybe for us but not for God. You see, sometimes what is lawful is not moral. We need to pause and consider how we are to abide with Christ’s Spirit. Of course, the foundation for doing justice is loving justice as a way of loving ourselves; and the foundation for loving justice more than ourselves is loving your neighbor as we love ourselves. So, we cannot claim to seek justice for others when we do not act justly in our relationships. When we seek justice for ourselves and turn a blind eye to the injustice others face, we miss the mark of what God has in mind for us. Perhaps, if we will concentrate our hearts on doing justice in all our acts, we might be better able to seek justice for others. And if we focus on doing justice, we might not be so insistent on seeking justice for ourselves. Maybe this approach of actively seeking opportunities to serve moment by moment, like the life of Jesus, might minimize or even prevent some evil acts occurring in the first place.
Pray we realize what is right to do. Pray we forgive on a daily basis. Pray
we actively seek to demonstrate God’s purpose in the moment-by-moment experience of life, until it is fully realized in God’s good time. Pray we are encouraged to keep reading the Bible and be inspire by the Word. Pray we keep forgiving others but also ourselves. Pray we find a pathway of service that honors God. Pray we realize that God is the Supreme Being of the universe. Pray we are set right with God by doing the right things for the right reasons. Pray we trust God and seek the mind of Christ and trust God’s lead in matters of faith. Pray we realize it is not so much about being declared right as actually being right. Pray still we do not punish ourselves. Pray we, as the called-out assembly of God, rethink the way the world is functioning and how we are to function in it. Pray we discover a security that can be trusted. Pray we enter the fullness of God’s design. Pray we integrate our theology with scripture, science and experiences we have been given by God. Pray when God comes to us, where we are, we are led to take the next step with God. Pray we realize that the marriage of God and humanity will not occur until we mature. Pray we realize that God will love us in our childlikeness but probably does not want a child bride.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 