The Grace of a Just God

I have been incredibly discouraged these past few weeks, watching politics and responses from afar as an American in a foreign land.  But the greatest source of my discouragement doesn’t have anything to do with politics. It has everything to do with the response of my family : Christ-followers everywhere.

I have seen and read and heard countless rants, emotions, admonishments, fears and frustrations from believers that sound absolutely nothing like Jesus.

Am I saying that followers of Jesus have to sound like Jesus all the time? Um, YES.  I am.

Do we catch ourselves falling into the trap of believing that Jesus simply doesn’t understand the current age or circumstance?  Do we think these modern times are somehow different than those the Bible is speaking into? Do we think Jesus joined the world in a day and age where there was NOT massive political turmoil?  Do we think our current frustrations and injustices with our governments and politics and left-side-right-side friends are somehow worse than the Roman times Jesus was born into?

Jesus’ day, on the contrary, was one of foreign nations cruelly dictating God’s people, one of King Herod seeking to kill baby Jesus and murdering thousands of toddler and infant boys in his pursuit, one of much slavery, killing anyone who spoke out against leadership, ripping families apart, decades with huge disparities between rich and poor, no freedom of speech or rights to vote, massive oppressive taxation, major political tension.

We must never think that what Jesus asks of us, He simply does not understand.

We today are God’s people.  And everything we say and do is in front of a world which largely does NOT know our Father.  We are representing the Holy One in front of a lost and dying and dark universe.

And yet we believers are talking of hate, with hate. We are venting of emotion. We are attacking those who do not know Him, in front of those who do not know Him. We are not speaking the truth in love. We are not turning the other cheek.

We were once lost and without hope, yet received unmerited amazing grace and great sacrificial love! Yet we are shouting threats, insults, anger, fear and even common-sense and wise insights without that same grace and love, and so it nothing.  We have become the noisy gongs and clanging cymbals that 1 Corinthians 13 warns about.

There is MUCH that must be spoken up for, much injustice to fight against.

But we must do it with the grace of a Just God. We must fight it with the words of our Victor Jesus. We must confront it with the sacrificial love of our Hope before a world without any.

Paul wrote in the midst of great political turmoil and oppression the letter of Ephesians.  Chapter 4 urges this:  “I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, with tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Are we speaking of our enemies right now in such a manner, as if our Jesus died for them? As if they are made in the image of God?

If Jesus Himself is our peace, as it says He is in Ephesians 2, then may that peace be manifested powerfully through us—not because there is no reason to fear, and not because there is no reason for anger—but because we trust Him, and believe with our whole hearts that He is on the throne.

If we do not believe it with our lives and actions and words today, if we do not believe it in these circumstances, then we simply never truly did.