justice

What Forgiveness Is

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” – Isaiah 30:18 As we conclude our series on forgiveness and now that we’ve covered what forgiveness is not and how we can set boundaries in the process of letting go, I want to talk about what forgiveness really is. Forgiveness is entrusting justice to God. Forgiveness is acknowledging that a person hurt or wounded you, but then choosing to let it go. You’re not going to forget what happened or say it was okay, but you’re going to wish the best for the person who harmed you. As you release them you are going to pray for God to bless them and ask that He would turn their heart around and that they would find His

November 12, 2022 3 Comments

Completely New in God’s Eyes

“Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. ‘Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’ ” – Isaiah 1:18 Today we will focus on a passage from Isaiah Chapter One. This is one of literally hundreds of passages that proclaim you’re completely new in God’s eyes. Through His prophet, Isaiah, God calls us to do what is right and that we see ourselves as God sees us, which is pure as snow. Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek

August 21, 2022 2 Comments

Divine Irony

“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.” – Psalm 45:6 Yesterday, we talked about Henry VIII and how his life, as selfish and crazy as it was, gave birth to a church that has shared Jesus with millions. And today, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to continue using a lesson from history to demonstrate how sovereignly God works. Once King Henry VIII died, his only surviving son ascended the throne at just nine years of age, but he passed away six years later. Upon his death, his sister, Queen Mary (a.k.a. Bloody Mary) — who was the only surviving child of the king and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon — took the throne in 1553. Since the new queen was very much Catholic, she hated her Protestant father with a passion. She was determined

October 14, 2021 No Comments

God Hates Injustice

“There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.” – Proverbs 6:16-19 I don’t know about you, but when the Lord says that He hates something, I pay attention. If there’s anything I don’t want to do, it’s to hurt His heart by engaging in things that cause Him pain. In fact, these verses from Proverbs 6 provide a powerful insight into the character of God by telling us what bothers Him the most. They also explain why Christ reacted the way He did when He encountered the money changers at the temple. Though any oppression grieves His heart, wrongs done in His Name are

September 9, 2021 No Comments

Crushing Evil

“But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.” – Judges 4:21 I love that the Old Testament is full of stories about good conquering evil. Through the lens of a Jew born before Christ, every victory the Israelites had pointed to the ultimate victory of the Messiah and to the heart of a God who wanted justice to prevail. That said, there’s a very interesting account in the book of Judges, and I’m especially fond of it because it involves the forces of darkness being taken down by a woman. In the tradition of Eve, whose offspring would eventually crush the serpent’s head, this story is yet more proof of the Lord’s power to triumph over wickedness. Having been oppressed by a

July 8, 2021 No Comments

God Doesn’t Act in Haste

“The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said: ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?’” – Genesis 18:22-24 For the past two days, we’ve looked at the events that transpired when God visited Abraham at his tent in Genesis 18. As we saw, the nomad went out of his way to welcome the Lord, and his generous hospitality remains a source of inspiration for us as we make the Holy Spirit at home in our lives today. However, something else happened during this interesting encounter, and it came in the form of a warning. The Almighty told His covenant-bearer that He was considering destroying

June 24, 2021 No Comments

The Root of the Problem

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.’” – Matthew 5:27-29 As Christians, we should constantly seek to become more like Jesus. While this is an everyday aspiration, looking ahead to a new year gives us an opportunity to commit ourselves again to the call of discipleship. In light of our divided culture — one in which social media has given everyone a platform — many of us feel a burden to cultivate unity. More than ever, we’re zealous about bringing divine justice and mercy to earth, yet

December 28, 2020 No Comments

What Forgiveness Is

Completely New in God’s Eyes

Divine Irony

God Hates Injustice

Crushing Evil

God Doesn’t Act in Haste

The Root of the Problem

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