The further and further I travel on this road of believing in God, the more I am surprised by His endless mercy and unfathomable love. He loves us through people, and if people get in the way, he loves us directly into the very core of our being. If I can put this little message into a nutshell, it would be this…
“No matter what we will do or what we have done, Gods response is always for others (those who would usually judge us) to love us. NO MATTER WHAT THE SIN OR OFFENCE. This may seem quite shocking – but what if the next time it’s you that’s sinning or lying or thieving or committing some other hurtful offence. We don’t know when or if or how we will stumble and fall along the road that our life takes, but what we do know is that God will always be there to pick us up and ‘Love’ us whole again. And this is what we need to do for others. We are not the judge and we are not the ones to implement justice. We are there to love.”
I experienced God’s grace firsthand when I fell pregnant before we were married. I know that was not ideal and I am by no means condoning it because I myself battled with the guilt and shame of it. BUT, I never felt condemned by God. Maybe convicted (that’s that little niggling voice that says we really should be adjusting our behavior) but it’s hugely different to condemnation. With conviction, we still feel loved and secure, but at the same time we feel that our behavior has been brought into the light. And once it’s in the light, we can see it for what it is and hopefully be prompted to adjust or completely change our behaviour.
I did however feel condemnation and judgement from some people whom I considered to be good friends. But only some! The majority of my friends and family surrounded me with love and support and encouragement. They were extending God’s love to me. It was this love that helped me to stay close to God. It gave me the courage and boldness to keep looking at him and keep my heart open to him. You see, that’s the thing. Condemnation and judgement makes us feel ashamed and want to hide our faces, and if anything would cause a hindrance in our relationship with God. That is the last thing that a loving father wants – the very last thing that God wants. Being loved in spite of my circumstance definitely helped me stay on a path of nearness to God. Judgement would have helped nothing, but love helped everything.
Jesus himself responded in love when facing a similar situation. When an adulterous woman was brought before him, he said: “Anyone here who has never sinned can throw the first stone at her.”
My story of God’s mercy is still so tender to me, but I have heard many more incredible stories of God’s forgiveness and Mercy. Stories where God has spoken directly into a husband’s heart, a boyfriends heart, a fathers hearts and even the hearts of those that have been ravaged by rape or murder – where He has spoken words of love and forgiveness and support. Only a God that is Love (the very origin of love) can pour out that love into man or woman, enabling them to love beyond their hurt or betrayal or even a great loss. God’s love is out the box – way out the box. With him, there is no black and white. There is just love. Love conquers all.
But then …. What is this thing about Justice??
I was immediately reminded of Romans 12:19
Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,
“I will take revenge; I will pay them back, says the Lord.
I have been doing an ongoing (low key) ‘study’ on Mercy and Justice because these were the two words that the Lord gave me over eight months ago. I will probably never fully understand His Justice and Mercy but this is what I have been able to grasp so far. It is a work in progress so I am sure that I will write more about it as time goes by.
God’s Mercy is so great that it covers over everything that we do in this world. But that doesn’t mean that we have complete free reign to do anything we want and to follow our every heart’s desire. Because on the other side of Mercy, is Gods perfect Justice and that means that for every wrong choice or so called ‘sin’, there is a consequence in God’s economy. This doesn’t mean that God slashes his whip every-time we do something wrong or don’t match up to his desires for us. It means that God’s Justice, just like his Mercy, covers all the earth and so whatever choices we make or whatever we do, will in one way or another, impact our lives and the lives of those around us – whether good or bad. And because we do not live in isolation, those people who are touched by our lives, will be impacted and affected by our actions.
This is the principal of ‘cause and effect’. Every action has some kind of reaction. In this life, sometimes it’s not us but others, that pay the high price for our actions. For example, when someone is unfaithful to their spouse or partner, that spouse or partner pays a price through the hurt and pain that they feel. Or in the case of something less drastic, if someone cheats on their taxes and boasts about it in front of their family, the members of that family may pay the price by becoming conditioned to lying and cheating. So you see, everything that we do, has an effect on those around us. And those effects are often not the desires of a just God who only wants what is absolutely best for each one of us. He cares about the innocent … and also the guilty, because he cares about our hearts. And there it is again …. Mercy and Justice.
Sometimes … God’s hand of justice will reach out and touch us in the ‘now’ and that will change the course of our lives.
Sometimes … other people cry out for God’s justice on their behalf or on the behalf of others and God hears their cries and takes action.
But most often …. It seems as if the guilty get away with it scot free. Again, this may be the case in this life, where deceit rules, money talks and secrets remain in the dark. In this life, we may never face the consequences of our actions but they have not gone unnoticed and God will bring them to our attention when we stand before him one day. Obviously I realize that not everyone believes in Heaven and facing God one day. This is a huge subject in itself but, the undeniable truth is that this life does end – of that we are all certain – and what is on the other side is a matter of what we believe. We all come from somewhere and we are all going to go somewhere … so I would say that it is better to believe and be prepared than not to believe at all.
So, does this mean that Justice is more for the person being wronged than the person doing the wrong? It is human nature for us to want to see moral justice on earth. We are instinctively outraged when we see injustice going on all around us. It is in our DNA. And want to see justice delivered for crimes committed. But we are human and our hand of justice may not always be fair or unbiased.
Whereas God is perfectly fair and unbiased. His judgement is perfect because He is perfect which means that He will never make an incorrect judgement. Also, and this is a biggie … God judges the reason or root rather than the ‘man’. Some of the most hideous, cruel and self-centered sins were committed by those whose lives are recorded in the bible. In fact, the very origin of sin is recorded in the bible. So this means that even people who are in very real and very intimate relationships with God behave sinfully and make the wrong choices.
David, was considered by God, to be a man after His own heart. God had a very special relationship with David and always loved him, no matter how often or how horrendously he sinned, from having an adulterous affair with Bathsheba to arranging the certain death of her husband. And even then, God was with him and God still loved him. David’s life was a dramatic portrait of success and failure. He was far from perfect, but in spite of his imperfections, his heart was always pointed toward God and his relationship with God was quickly restored because he felt regret and remorse for his actions and he asked God to forgive him.
But, even though David was quickly forgiven, he still had to suffer the consequences of his actions. As would we. But what is key, is that God never stops loving a person whose heart longs to be in a right relationship with Him.
And that is the essence of it all. God Loves us! God pursues us with his love and even when we ‘sin’ he continues to love us and pursue us. What we need to do, is keep our hearts pointed towards God. And even though we will have to face the consequences of our behavior, we will still feel loved and comforted and protected by our God. That is love out of the box! That is love over and out and beyond any boundaries of a box. It is pure, beautiful, perfect LOVE!