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Nov 13, 2010

God's Justice and Ours

Certainly evildoers deserve punishment but there is a great difference between God's justice and ours. The problem is that man thinks of justice in a different way than God. We believe that justice has been served when the perpetuators of crime or evil works are punished with a jail sentence or even sentenced to death. Humans tend to focus on the eye for an eye brand of justice for the evil that people do.

Thankfully, God does not view things in the same way and He practices to give us what we need rather than what we deserve and that is also what He requires us to do in our dealings with others.

A JOKE

A lady of a certain age visited a professional photographer to have her portrait made. When she returned to see the proofs she told the photographer that the pictures did not do her justice. The photographer commented, “Ma'am, when it comes to your portraits you don't need justice; you need mercy!”

LOVE AND FORGIVENESS

And mercy is something that we all need! We need for God to be merciful toward us and we need him to love us, forgive us and accept us. We are well aware that even the most devout Christians do not always walk in faith as we should. We are often separated from our beliefs and the way that we live out our lives do not reflect our spirituality.
Please refer to this inspirational Bible verse about love and kindness, Micah 6:8 that tells us, "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

When the Lord asks us to carry out justice he is requiring us to live and walk in our faith in our daily lives. Just going to church on Sunday is not enough. Our faith should lead us to work from justice and to witness to others in the way that we conduct our lives. To be truthful there's no danger in mistaking us for Christ our Savior but He should be seen in us in the way we live. It’s a goal worth having to bring God's Justice and ours closer together and to conduct acts of kindness that remind others of our Lord who is the kindest of all.

Communicating with God through Prayer

Communicating with God through prayer is the very best way to deal with what the world throws at us. In fact, we owe it to ourselves to start each day in fellowship with our Creator to give us the strength and inspiration to accept His will and to acknowledge his wisdom.

When my mother was a child her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. At this time, this more or less was considered a death sentence. Medical treatments were much less advanced in those days and the choices open to her were radiation and radical surgery neither of which offering any real guarantee of survival. In fact the doctor told her to get her spiritual house in order and be prepared for the worst.

Feeling better best chances were with surgery that is the option she chose. After the surgery the doctor told her that even with radiation she would probably live no longer than a year or so. The treatments made her so sick and she realized that for that one short year she was going to have no quality of life and stopped so that she could enjoy her children for the short time she had left to her.

My grandmother and grandfather had only been Christians for a few years but remembered hearing a sermon on how God had the power to heal and referred to this inspirational Bible verse in James: 5:14-15 that tells us, "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he had committed sand, they shall be forgiven him."

So they called the elders as indicated that they should in the Bible verse and asked them to come and pray for my grandmother. The elder said that they had never received such a call and had not prayed over a sick person in this manner before but has asked a prayed a simple prayer asking for this young mother to be healed.

The next day she was released from the hospital to go home and prepare to die. However, I am here and able to tell you this story today because that small group of believers gathered together in her hospital room for the purpose of communicating with God through prayer in her behalf. You see, she was healed and live not only to raise her children but to see her grandchildren.

Our heavenly Father created us to stay in fellowship with Him and to communicate with him through prayer and offers great benefits if we will just call on Him for guidance. Do you have a need that communicating with God through prayer might be filled? We should all work diligently to develop our relationship with Him and to communicate our needs to Him and not look to the opinions and approval of man for fulfillment.