A DEVOTIONAL GUIDE FOR “THE TEN TIMELESS
VALUES FOR DISCIPLESHIP”
“I am the
Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for
in these things I delight.” Jeremiah
9:24
One of the principle differences I see between the Old and New
Testaments is a shift in the primary ethic for life. In the Old Testament that ethic is justice,
based on a theology of a just God. The
basic question a person would ask before any action would be, “is it
just?” In the New Testament however, the
primary ethic for life is love, based on a theology of a loving God manifest in
Jesus. I John said, “God is love”, and
Jesus said the greatest commandment was “to love God and neighbor”. What is interesting is that Jesus said that
he didn’t come to abolish the law (a relationship with God based on justice),
but to fulfill it or to bring it to its full intention (a relationship with God
based on love). So in Jesus we find that
justice and love are inseparable, in fact they manifest in his life and
death. I John says we know what love is
by the fact that Jesus died for us, but we know that Jesus died for us to pay
the penalty for our sin (love and justice held together).
God never separates love and justice and he calls us to “hold fast” to
both, to “do justice and to love kindness”.
Our world has been and always will be (at least until the Kingdom comes
in fullness) full of unjust systems and people driven by greed, power, pride,
and self-centeredness. It is why Jesus
could safely say, “the poor you will always have with you”. Jesus came to break down strongholds of
oppression and exploitation; he fed the hungry, cast out demons, healed the
sick, broke down walls of division, and gave value and worth to all people
regardless of race, gender, economics, or religion. In other words, out of love he sought to
establish justice. For Jesus, to live
out the law of love was to do justice.
Love for him was an action and not limited to those who loved you (that
would be just), but even to love your enemies.
If you think about it, love without justice is not really love is
it? Is it loving as a parent to have no
accountability (justice) for our children?
Is it loving as a church to teach people that God loves them without
also teaching people that God holds us accountable for our actions? James would ask, “is it loving to see people
who are hungry and say God bless you, God loves you, but not feed them”? Is it loving for a nation to be unwilling to
enter a “just war” on behalf of people who are suffering genocide? For those of us who live under grace we do so
because Jesus lived under justice and as result we will forever have to hold
them together in our understanding of God and the living of our lives as His
children.
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