Isaiah 30:18

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
    and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
     blessed are all those who wait for him.

Christ is waiting on you, even now, so that he can be gracious towards you.  He is at this moment at your door, arms full of gifts, desiring for you to come to him to that he may be generous to you.  For this reason Christ died to purchase for you every good gift and every blessing in the heavenly realms.  He was exalted to the highest place so that he may be able to show mercy to us by bringing us to where he is.  He will show compassion on whom he will show compassion for He is a God of Justice, rebuking the oppressors and lifting up the oppressed.

And just as Christ waits on us, we wait on him.  Just as He longs for us so shall we long for Him.  This is the Great Anticipation, when Husband and Bride shall be united at last, when all that is His shall be ours as well.  He has dressed us in all his splendor and bought for us a garment of praise. He has adorned us with the crown of life.

But his gifts come to us even in this life as we pray as well for justice to be done.  Heaven is breaking into Earth at the place where God dwells inside his temple, inside each and every believer by the power of the Holy Spirit, the first fruits of what is to come.

Job 32:2-3

"But Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, became very angry with Job for justifying himself rather than God. He was also angry with the three friends, because they had found no way to refute Job, and yet had condemned him."

As guilty as a person may be, if there is insufficient evidence to convict of sin, there can be no condemnation.  A person is "innocent" until proven "guilty" and because Job had not yet been refuted by his friends, he started to actually believe himself to be innocent.  He justified himself rather than God whom he accused of wronging him, something Elihu recognized rightly to be utter nonsense.

Elihu became God's defense attorney and also Job's prosecutor, showing him his fault and defending God's name.  But it wasn't enough.  God himself stepped out of Heaven to Job's front door and began his cross examination of Job, once and for all convicting him of sin.   But Job was not sentenced.  He was not punished.  Rather he humbled himself and all things were restored to him and more!

So how much more, then, has a God who has proven the world's sin and guilt, exonerate those who humble themselves and repent?  How much more will he restore to them not only their lives, but eternal life?  Through the Law our transgressions multiplied so that we should be proven utterly sinful, but through our Judge Jesus Christ we bear no burden if we humble ourselves and obey.

Revelation 19:1-2

"Hallelujah!  Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments."


God's righteousness is at the very core of God's being.  You simply cannot divorce God's righteous character from God else you leave yourself with a God who is more than worthless to serve.  If God was not just and true in his judgments, then there is no salvation for God is powerless to act.  If God were not just and true in his judgments, then he has no glory but is instead a liar and untrustworthy.  There is nothing which can stop an unjust God from taking back the salvation he has promised, but Hallelujah!  Our Lord Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, has shown himself to be more than gracious, just, merciful, and fair in dealing with sin.  Because we have faith in Him and his righteousness, we know as well of His salvation.

Satan wants Job to do one thing:  when suffering comes, he wants Job to curse God and therefore forfeit his salvation.  Far be it from us to ever blaspheme God in this way! Who can accuse God and not their own salvation at the same time?  If they are right and God is unrighteous, wouldn't they wish they were wrong?

If your theology doesn't start with a God who is righteous and just in all cases, then stop for it is just as worthless as the god you made up.  This is the beginning of faith.

Job 40:8

"Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?"

This is the Lord speaking to Job, but these words were not written just for Job but for us as well.  The proud are people who love to justify themselves.  "I'm a good person because..."  "That person had it coming..." "I did what anyone would do..."  No one ever realizes they are doing the wrong thing until after they've done it, if they realize it at all.  For them, God can make mistakes but they are never wrong.

It is not until we learn to readily admit we are wrong that we can receive grace.  Those who are stubborn and those who must always be right will forever stubbornly refuse the grace that could have been theirs.  Humility is the key to the kingdom of God.  As Paul writes, "Let God be true and every man a liar".  In short, let God be God. If God is not righteous, salvation is not worthless.  Those who condemn God only condemn themselves.

When it comes to arguments among Believers, the same principle applies.  Would you rather be right or happy? Paul states in 1 Corinthians 6, "The very fact that you have lawsuits amongst yourselves means you have been completely defeated already.  Why not rather be wronged?  Why not rather be cheated?" Not every hill is worth dying on so for the sake of your relationships pick and choose your battles carefully.

Jeremiah 9:23-24

"Thus says the LORD: 

'Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, 

let not the mighty man boast in his might, 

let not the rich man boast in his riches, 

but let him who boasts boast in this,

 that he understands and knows me, 

that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, 

justice, and righteousness in the earth. 

For in these things I delight' declares the LORD."

Who is like the Lord?  To what can we compare Him for there is no one like Him in all the Earth.  Indeed to say that you could fathom the mysteries of God himself is indeed a thing to boast about.

And boast we can.

God has revealed himself apart from the Scriptures (but to which they testify) in the living incarnation of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.  All who have seen him have seen the Father so that no one may be without excuse.  God has made himself known so that all who come to the Father through the Son may be made known to him.  Jesus Christ is the embodiment of steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in whom the Father is "well pleased". (Mark 1:11)

So we boast in Jesus Christ, the giver of all good things and the maker of heaven and earth, who died and rose again to give us glory in the Father's court.  We know who we worship and he knows us. Hallelujah!  Jesus Christ is Lord!

Jeremiah 2:29

"'Why do you bring charges against me? You have all rebelled against me,' declares the LORD."

    When we pray, have we any right to ask God for the things we desire? Have not each one of us gone astray? Have we all not "played the harlot", as Jeremiah 2 so potently describes? It is as if a man caught cheating returns and asks her for favors. Would not the last person on Earth you would want to see be your cheating ex? Indeed we have no right to complain, or ask, let alone even to talk to God after what we've done.

    But God isn't bitter nor is his love fickle. He has loved us with an undying love that nothing in this world could break, not even sin, which was defeated on the Cross by Christ. Love accepts us, but justice transforms us. They cannot exist apart from the other. God is no fool, but righteous. Thus love requires justice to be love. He listens to the prayer of those who obey for "the prayer of the righteous man is powerful and effective" and righteousness is by faith.

    So when we pray, we do so humbly, knowing we deserve nothing but relying on God's own goodness and righteousness to care for us. We do so in faith knowing that He is willing and able to do it. How wonderful it is to be able to talk to God and how overlooked is its value! Prayer is our privilege.

    

Jonah 3:9

"Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

    I love Jonah for many reasons: Because it reveals God's heart for the city, because Jonah was a terrible prophet whom God still used (gives me hope), and because of this verse 3:9. It gives me much hope as one who barely knows God. If the Assyrians, wicked and detestable as they were, could be spared (if only for a while), then there is hope of repentance for every man. However Jonah's anger is revealing. He wanted punitive justice. He wanted to watch the Assyrians burn. He had condemned them already. But aren't we also quick to condemn, dealing out our own justice to our own destruction (Rom 2:1)?

Does not the right to judge belong to God and God alone? Should we not let God be God and not have to deal with "who is saved" and "who isn't"?

And what does it matter to us who is saved? Do we not love everyone equally so as to preach Christ to both saved and unsaved? A person's salvation is between them and the Lord, to be worked out fearfully with trembling. It should be a relief that such a burdensome decision to condemn a man does not fall on our shoulders. God makes the hard decisions while ours is the lighter yoke: to tell the world of God's love in word and deed. Amen!

Psalms 10:16-18

"The LORD is King forever and ever; the nations will perish from his land.  You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."


It is fascinating to me that the end to this psalm begins with a statement of Christ's Kingship.  It is a confession that Jesus Christ is Lord forever and ever who has all power and authority to establish and tear down kings and kingdoms.  And yet, this is contrasted with a different sort of King, one who "encourages" (the Hebrew reads something like "you repair the hearts of") the afflicted and defends the fatherless and the oppressed from "terrifying men".    Imagine a king who took it personally upon himself to cheer you up when you are downcast, who goes out of his way to bind up your broken heart.  Can you believe this is the King who reigns forever and ever?  It's true.

Jesus Christ is LORD.  While he was on Earth, he did exactly these things and now that God the Father has raised him from the dead and exalted him to His right hand and gave him dominion over all the Earth, he continues to reign with justice and mercy.  God has not promised that we never suffer or have man "terrify" us, he promised to be there for us when we are.

Luke 15:20

"So he got up and went to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."


Can a love like this really exist?  It sounds almost impossible that it could.  In fact, it sounds downright wrong for it to exist.  In face of such a rebellious son, he deserves to be punished.  He knows it, his family knows it, and everyone reading knows it as well.  How uncomfortable this prodigal son must have felt receiving so freely that which he didn't deserve.  It just doesn't feel right.  In fact he wanted to earn his forgiveness from the beginning!

We don't hear much else about this son, about how he chose to live his life afterwards when confronted with such amazing grace, whether deep down inside he could ever forgive himself even though his father so freely forgives.  It begs the question, how can we, when confronted with the righteous love of God, help but feel like the most depraved being?  How in the world can we live with ourselves when what we are is so broken and filthy?  It seems then only natural the closer we get to God, the more we dislike ourselves.

But while we were still a long ways off from the Father, he ran to us because he couldn't wait for us to get to him.

Who is like the LORD?