“God in his infinite mercy has devised a way by which justice can be satisfied, and yet mercy can be triumphant. Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father, took upon himself the form of man, and offered unto Divine Justice that which was accepted as an equivalent for the punishment due to all his people.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
Justice is satisfied, and mercy triumphs — 
Justice and mercy are not opposites.
Favoritism is the opposite of justice.
Favoritism pretends there was no harm. And that’s wrong.
James 2:9 (AMP)
But if you show partiality [prejudice, favoritism], you are committing sin and are convicted by the Law as offenders.
Justice acknowledges sin. Mercy forgives it. And that’s good.
Leviticus 19:15 (ESV)
You shall do no injustice in court.
You shall not be partial to the poor
or defer to the great,
but in righteousness shall you
judge your neighbor.
I’ve got my call for jury duty. I may or may not be selected to serve. But I already have my instructions — from the mouth of the Great Judge.
I got a card in the mail — it’s my turn for jury duty.
This set me thinking . . . about justice.
Isaiah 61:8 (ESV)
For I the Lord love justice.
Our holy God loves justice. Our all-knowing, all-seeing God loves justice.
I have some doubts about our system of justice. It is a human system. None of the people involved are all-seeing or all-knowing. We can be led astray by a clever argument or a touching story.
Lord, teach us to love justice. Teach us to know justice. Teach us to seek justice.
“O Lord, forgive me my sins,
the sins of my youth,
and my present sins,
the sin that my parents cast upon me,
original sin,
and the sins that I cast upon my children,
in an ill example;
actual sins,
sins which are manifest to all the world,
and sins which I have so labored to hide from the world,
as that now they are hid from mine own conscience,
and mine own memory . . .
Forgive me, O Lord,
O Lord, in the merits of thy Christ and my Jesus,
thine anointed, and my savior.”
John Donne (1571-1631)
Romans 7:19 (NLT)
I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
I’m with the Apostle Paul on this one.
This side of heaven, I will be wrong — sometime, somewhere, somehow. No doubt about it.
Romans 7:24-25
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus was, is and will be the answer Forever and ever.
When my boys were young, I’d tell them, “I’m right 100% of the time, and that’s a conservative estimate.”
I was wrong. Nobody’s right 100% of the time.
Romans 12:3 (AMPC)
. . . I warn everyone among you not to estimate and think of himself more highly than he ought [not to have an exaggerated opinion of his own importance], but to rate his ability with sober judgment, each according to the degree of faith apportioned by God to him.
Still overrating myself? Yep. And still wrong.
I was wrong.
I am forgiven.
1 John 1:8-9 (ESV)
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The old is gone, the slate is clean.
I can be right for the wrong reasons.
1 Corinthians 16:14
Let all that you do be done in love.
What’s my motivation?
Back to the Apostle Paul:
1 Corinthians 13:1,3
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal . . . If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, have not love, I gain nothing.
“O God, Who are the unsearchable abyss of peace, the ineffable sea of love, the fountain of blessings, and the bestower of affection, Who sends peace to those that receive it; open to us this day the sea of Your love, and water us with the plenteous streams from the riches of Your grace. Make us children of quietness, and heirs of peace.”
A prayer of the early Church, from the Syrian Clementine Liturgy
