The secret to successfully living a life that will prove unjust at some point is the ability to forgive. Not just people, but situations—many of which are beyond our control to correct.
This is the most fundamental way
to SUCCEED in one’s life,
otherwise we may have a hard time
overcoming situations that cause us to despair.
True success in life is built on
maintaining a healthy spiritual heart.
As a prelude to what is coming, injustices will occur in this life, and not just specific injustices that might be righted in due course or in good time. At some point there will come an injustice we cannot do anything about. And there will be dozens of those times in our lives over the long haul.
In these situations that occur both ad hoc and in clumps, and our attitude overall needs to conform to the Gospel way of Jesus, which is:
Injustices are only overcome through forgiveness.
This GOSPEL way was modelled at the Cross,
and it has become our model in declaring victory over sin.
Frankly, when the world offers every other alternative,
including “get even,” forgiveness is the ONLY way.
The Gospel Way is redemption in a single human being, in a couple, in a community, over an entire world if hearts be aligned. To what? To the overcoming of injustice now and for all time in our Lord Jesus Christ, who His Father used to forgive, once and for all, the iniquity of us all who believe in and follow this same Christ.
The Gospel Way is proven—decade after decade, century after century, millennium after millennium—and this is historically correct—as the only way to achieve spiritual victory.
THE IDOL OF INSISTING JUSTICE BE DONE
Of course, we struggle with all this. At some point life will test us, but a heart-alignment to the Gospel imperative of forgiveness brings freedom, but obviously not without sacrifice.
Our key enemy is not Satan. Satan is an instrument pushing us toward the real enemy. Satan, the world, our flesh—all three push us into the milieu of the real challenges that face us on a daily and momentary basis.
Idols are the real enemy.
Idols underpin the role of
the world, Satan and our flesh.
Idols are the common denominator.
Idols are those things on our hearts that don’t belong—anything that does not align with truth and love, and therefore which is enmity toward God.
One of our key idols is justice. Not that justice is a bad thing. It isn’t. It is good to desire justice. However, when we demand a good desire be delivered to us—i.e., that justice be done on our terms—our good desire becomes an idol.
An idol takes the place of God in our heart.
The theology of idols is proven
in how good desires become demands
that cause us to judge and then punish people
when they do not give us what we demand.
For instance, when we demand a person repents.
Beyond calling someone to account,
only God can change a heart.
At such times, we may put justice above God when to honour God would mean us waiting humbly for it. God sees it ALL—all injustice—and He will judge it.
When we insist justice be done in our time and by the ways we can procure it, we may have elevated justice above the goodness of faith that believes all things will be made new at the right time.
Justice is important to God,
because life is about truth and love.
Whether we get justice in this life or not
is less important than trusting God to bring justice.
This is hard to swallow,
but forgiving injustices
is a discipleship challenge:
Who is God in this mess?
Can God be “good” even in a travesty?
None of this is about ignoring proper legal courses of action that in all due diligence must be observed. What must be properly done must be properly done. But many of the injustices that occur to us are beyond legal recourse. They are beyond cogent and coherent human control.
We cannot do improperly what is improperly done, even if it seems right in our and others’ eyes. Some justice must properly be in the waiting.
Of course, this seems odd. But remember we are living a life of SERVITUDE to a King who sees ALL in any event. When we truly understand this, we are at peace leaving that justice to Him, in faith, who is faithful and just, knowing He will deliver on His justice at the right time, in the right way.
TRUE JOY IN TRUST THAT GOD WILL DELIVER
The truest peace is enjoyed when we fully trust God to deliver upon His promises. There is no point fixating on any other outcome because Psalm 37:8 points out what happens:
“Refrain from anger and renounce wrath,
do not fret—it leads [us to do] only evil.”
We know this to be true. Injustice corrodes the heart when we have no place to take the pain we experience in the confusion of a situation we cannot make sense of.
Then we have verses like “Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds” from James 1:2, and we cannot help thinking, “What! Joy in the pain of THIS trial?” Especially in the pain of confusion for the grieving bitterness of injustice.
THE PRACTICALITIES OF JOY IN SUFFERING
Less important is justice when joy may be had in any event, especially when joy will protect us and those close to us from overreactions to that which we cannot control. Think about any situation that may arise in our lives—even that which we find innately stressful.
The greatest joy in life
is experiencing peace in suffering.
Christians have access to such a thing.
IT IS BIBLICAL.
It is written about a great deal in God’s Word.
Each moment that we catch ourselves fretting is a moment to remind ourselves of the choice we have for joy. Of course, if joy is to be found in an abhorrent situation, we will be challenged to find another definition for it; or we may deduce that joy is possible EVEN in the present grief. Suffering reframes what joy is when we can access it there.
JUSTICE OR SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS?
Any justice we negotiate or manufacture or manipulate for is not a justice that stands up to any test of truth.
It is no good to ‘arrange’ a justice unjustly, which is about bringing a person or situation to account in truth, but without full account of love, and this happens more than we will admit when we insist on our justice.
This is not to say that bringing a justice forth
isn’t loving because it definitely can be.
It all depends on our heart. We must have:
Good hearts for justice,
hearts of love for those being brought to account,
hearts that have forgiven the injustice,
hearts that are ready to embrace the repentant and
genuinely pity the one still resident in their sin.
All this is about LIVING the gospel that saves us. It is about living the love that has been modelled to us. It is all about us experiencing the LIFE that comes from following in Jesus’ footsteps, even as we experience the freedom available in coveting nothing anymore.
There is a joy to be had in our Christian walk, but that joy is only possible when we surrender our demands for a self-righteous justice for the freedom we can only behold.
This world promises a kingdom
that allures but only returns bondage.
God’s Kingdom however promises freedom
and delivers on same.
There is only one way to sample
a freedom nothing can touch.
That is when we give our all to God.
The cosmic irony in all this is we only give our all to God when God has made Himself known to us and ambushed our hearts with His love.
We don’t truly understand what God has done for us until we have grasped the mercy that has been poured out at Calvary for each of us.
Until we understand this mercy that must grasp us for us to grasp it, we do not understand the fullness of what God has given us, and therefore we are not free to forgive those who sin against us.
But there is joy in a heart that can forgive those who sinned against us, and for the most serious of sins this is indeed a process. All we need know, however is, it is possible to extend a scandalous grace toward others when we have been benefactors of an infinitely more scandalous grace.
