KNOW Justice, KNOW Peace
It’s unfortunate that those who find themselves shocked and awed by the events that are shaping today’s perspective of humanity, those who claim to be “woke”, can’t even rattle off the numbers of deaths and tragedies we are left to cope with without a little help from Google or social media. Our manufactured rage reaches about as far as our research takes us, which only lends more credence to the fallible fact that just because there’s more information available doesn’t mean that we’re smarter or that knowledge is power; it can be crippling, especially when unused or misused. I see the Bible take a backseat to a nationality that was supposed to cease being a priority once GOD took its place, amongst a people crying for heaven, but wanting it manifested in the midst of and in spite of the sin we’re surrounded by. We claim we want justice; that’s not what we mean.
To the impoverished, enraged, looked over, hunted, second-class, disenfranchised, disgruntled, underachieving and easily pacified, to anyone who’s ever felt wronged over anything, justice seems like the right thing to say; the right stance to take. But what do corrupt hearts, filled with self-serving motives and intents, know about justice? Aren’t we the same people who lament the violence we see that relinquishes the “innocent”, yet champion the vulgarity and death that we are welcoming via entertainment into our daily lives? What do we know about justice? Call me a hypocrite or a hater or simply “un-woke” (see what I did there?), but where is the balance in our response that justice actually is?? Or are we content to allow “justice” to be translated “vengeance”, which belongs to the LORD???
I absolutely get it: seeing someone murdered in cold blood is graphic, shocking, mortifying; but so is watching slow death that’s being chosen, pursued, sought after on a daily basis. I think the one thing we most forget about sin is that is puts us in bad positions; positions that leave us outside of and away from guaranteed protection. Innocence, then, can’t be judged in a moment simply because nothing was apparently being done in that moment. What’s my point? The pendulum of justice, GOD’s justice, swings BOTH ways, not just in the direction that favors me. The reason we don’t see more preachers out offering Salvation to those in need is because we have yet, as a whole Body, to recognize the impact relationship with GOD plays on EVERY level of life: how it restores innocence lost, how it rescues from judgment and covers from what can’t be controlled. We don’t sell that, we sit on it, and so as the world grieves and the church muses of leaving, our job continues to go undone and the more selfish we appear because it’s what we have become.
There is not one thing in this life that we’re looking for that GOD has not made provision for, especially our pain. What befuddles me is how nonchalantly we continue to choose to recycle these experiences because we don’t want the exercise the necessary temperance and discipline required to change our choices so that we change our outcome. It’s OK to mourn, but it’s not OK to simply conversate. Being better, having better, seeing better, living better ALL have to do with DOING better. To be fair, just, information in these situations, while important, has little bearing on how to handle, address, confront and move forward in these times, which are ALL things that must be done. If life doesn’t go on, and we don’t learn from these things, the trap has worked and the game is over; just a matter of time until our piece is removed from the board.
You know, the other thing we forget about sin is that it produces the unnecessary; daily men, women, and children, alike, unnecessarily lose their lives in acts that while unmentionable, are not anything unseen under the sun. Sin doesn’t give, it only takes, and because what we deal with is a sin issue, we do best not to put a bandaid on a terminal disease. With so much unrest, why isn’t it apropos to offer remedy? After all, the peace makers are the ones who are blessed, because they understand the root of justice. To know JESUS is to know justice; to know justice is to know peace. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, else is relative.
John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Be safe out here. Better yet, be CHRIST out here. GOD bless.